The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation to assess whether an agreement between Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) for online display advertising services may have breached EU competition rules. Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: ”Many publishers rely on online display advertising to fund online content for consumers. Via the so-called “Jedi Blue” agreement between Google and Meta, a competing technology to Google’s Open Bidding may have been targeted with the aim to weaken it and exclude it from the market for displaying ads on publisher websites and apps. If confirmed by our investigation, this would restrict and distort competition in the already concentrated ad tech market, to the detriment of rival ad serving technologies, publishers and ultimately consumers.”
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Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, and Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, made a statement on the 10th of March 2022 with regards to the Ukraine-Russia War. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a watershed for Europe. The Governing Council expresses its full support to the people of Ukraine. We will ensure smooth liquidity conditions and implement the sanctions decided by the European Union and European governments. We will take whatever action is needed to fulfil the ECB’s mandate to pursue price stability and to safeguard financial stability. Continue reading…

On 16 December 2020, the Parliament and the Council adopted a regulation 1 which establishes a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget in the case of breaches of the principles of the rule of law in a Member State. In order to attain that objective, the regulation allows the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, to adopt protective measures such as the suspension of payments to be made from the Union budget or the suspension of the approval of one or more programmes to be paid from that budget. 2 Continue reading…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has published a discussion paper on February 22nd on debt overhang issues of non-financial corporates in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This follows the FSB’s report on COVID-19 support measures, published in April 2021, which noted the unprecedented level of debt of non-financial companies, resulting largely from massive credit provision by the public sector (both directly and through loan guarantees) during the pandemic. The report identified debt overhang as a significant risk that could arise from prolonged policy support measures. Continue reading…

Eurojust supported the Romanian and Italian authorities in an investigation that concluded with the indictment of five Italian citizens accused of defrauding the EU of at least EUR 800 000 worth of EU agricultural funds. The fraudsters and four companies they set up first face trial in Romania. A trial for self money laundering will take place in Italy at a later date. Judicial authorities from Romania and Italy met yesterday in Enna, Italy, to evaluate the joint investigation team (JIT) that unveiled the fraud. The case was brought to Eurojust by the Romanian authorities in 2019. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Barclays Bank Plc (Barclays) £783,800 for oversight failings in its relationship with collapsed payments firm Premier FX. Barclays was Premier FX’s sole banker in the UK. The financial penalty takes into account that Barclays has agreed voluntarily to cover the losses of Premier FX customers whose claims have been accepted by Premier FX’s liquidators. Following the distribution by the liquidator amounting to 9p for every £1 lost, Barclays’ voluntary payment of £10,076,943.75 will make up the difference, meaning all 167 customers of Premier FX with accepted claims will have 100% of their money returned. The voluntary payment will be distributed to these customers by the liquidators by the end of March 2022. Continue reading…

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, publishes on February 15th the first Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities (TRV) Report of 2022 and, in its outlook for 2022, continues to see high risks to institutional and retail investors of further, possibly significant, market corrections. The pandemic’s resurgence at the end of 2021 and an uncertain economic and monetary policy outlook are leading market participants to revisit their growth and market expectations. Going forward, we continue to see high risks to investors of further – possibly significant – market corrections as markets remain nervous and geopolitical tensions are rising. Continue reading…

by Mark Pieth

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the US and the EU announced economic sanctions, whereas official Switzerland announced that it would first have to analyse the new situation. Obviously, one would ask what the Swiss Government has been doing over the last few weeks when tensions rose. What is more, Switzerland announced it would take some measures to reduce the risk of circumvention of sanctions, but that it did not envisage blocking funds of persons close to the Russian regime. Now, this may be understandable from a purely economic point of view. Isn’t Switzerland the seat of Nordstream 1 and 2, isn’t a large part of Russian oil traded through Geneva, including by Russian oligarchs? The official Swiss attitude does, however, echo the experiences with this country during the Second World War, large parts of the Cold War and Apartheid: neutrality was considered a licence to do business with anyone, including criminal regimes.
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by Michel Klompmaker

At the moment, the Ukrainian capital Kiev is under siege and being bombed. The West is watching and Putin can carry out his long-devised plan without too much opposition. Let’s not pretend that this has been a big surprise. It quickly brings to mind 1938 when the ‘Anschluss’ through Austria with Germany became a fact. Putin has waited neatly with this invasion until after the Olympic Games in China so as not to embarrass his supporters there. One dictator learns the tricks of another dictator. China is now going to learn from the reaction of the West and can benefit from this, in the very important step for China, namely the ‘Anschluss’ of Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China that is on the program. Let’s not be naive and think that this is a utopia and that the intake can be prevented through consultation. Time for the West to wonder if we shouldn’t divide the world in two… a part that is undesirable and objectionable to the West and a part that is as little involved as possible with such dictatorships. This means that many western knots have to be counted… no more SWIFT, but also no more sponsors like Gazprom to admit to the Champions League. But banks are also embarrassed, because all those billions of money are stored somewhere. Meanwhile, the European Union has changed the sanctions regime. Continue reading…