by Evert-Jan Lammers

If you are not a sponsor, an athlete or a gambler you probably wouldn’t know that the largest running event in Europe took place last weekend in Brussels. But you would know of the coming-up European football championship and the Olympic games. What you should know is that in most sports, big and small, international and local, there is match fixing, doping of athletes, and vote-buying (in bidding). The world of sports is infected. If only we could smell it.
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by Tony de Bree

One of my favourite books on change is this book ‘The Fat Firm’. Why? Because the book mainly uses cartoons to demonstrate the behaviour of employees and managers in large corporates (‘Dinosaurs’ or like in the case of Banking ‘Jurassic banks’). Corporate culture is a hot topic again in large organisations and in management circles. With special attention focus on how managers and employees in large corporates can start to behave like managers and employees in startups. That is why in this column, I will help you in finding the correct ‘levers of change’ for your corporate culture and to transform your organisation from a ‘boss-centric’ one to an organisation with a ‘client-centric’ corporate culture. What is corporate culture?

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by Evert-Jan Lammers

Nobody wants to be spied upon and then reported to the authorities like it happened during the war. Whistleblowers provoke war traumas even to those who have never experienced war. However, whistleblowers are not war-heroes but peace-heroes. No drama then?
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by Evert-Jan Lammers

Some organizations address integrity issues in the in-house magazine, in balanced scorecards, in board meetings, in their communication to stakeholders. Other organizations don’t. Good versus bad company or proactive versus reactive company. Let’s zoom-in on the pro-active companies, the mature organizations. Their board meetings are not only about the what-and-when, but also about the why-and-how. Participants in these meetings dare to speak-up, empowered and protected by shared values. These meeting rooms are light and clear.

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by Event-Jan Lammers

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) can prosecute you in the UK for acts of corruption even if your head offices are based in Belgium, your factory is located in Chile, and your Singapore agent is paying bribes in Taiwan. If your organization has a close connection to the UK, for example an English business partner, one day you will feel a hand on your shoulder: the SFO has found you. Should this idea keep you awake? Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), alongside the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), has today published new rules in relation to whistleblowing. These changes follow recommendations in 2013 by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) that banks put in place mechanisms to allow their employees to raise concerns internally (i.e. to ‘blow the whistle’) and that they appoint a senior person to take responsibility for the effectiveness of these arrangements.

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by Evert-Jan Lammers

Last week Transparency International (TI) has announced its global Strategy 2020. One of the focal points of the strategy is “More prevention”. TI Greece’s representative was serious when he joked: “More prevention until 2020 is not enough for Greece. I need two generations to achieve real change.” He hit the nail on the head. A non-governmental organization better spends its time and money on the next generation than on the current one.

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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published an Opinion to the European Union (EU) institutions on the impact of EMIR on UCITS. In the opinion, ESMA calls for a modification of the UCITS Directive to take into account the clearing obligations for certain types of over-the-counter (OTC) financial derivative transactions under EMIR.
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by Melvyn Morrison

Nico Zwikker is the former Head of Compliance at the ABN Amro Group. He started his career as a lawyer at the Amsterdam Bar and went on to the banking industry where he has been active during the past 25 years. Zwikker has previously also held a number of senior positions, including working as a lawyer and as a risk manager. His extensive experience in compliance, reputation and regulatory risk management encompasses a wide range of business risk profiles. During the course of his career, Nico has embarked on a stakeholder management approach in dealing with regulators (including national regulators and a significant number of foreign regulators), and he is fully conversant with the fast-evolving regulatory banking and securities landscape.

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