by Geert Vermeulen

Two former employees of Dutch social housing corporation Vestia have been convicted for corruption. One of them received a 2,5 year jail sentence and the other one was sentenced to 1 year in jail. Cleaning companies, window cleaners and contractors who worked for Vestia paid the two employees large money amounts and goods in kind to get assignments from the housing corporation. The father of one of the employees and two intermediaries were involved as well. The Vestia employees told the suppliers in advance what price they should offer. Vestia estimates that the total damage of the fraud for them has been around EUR 3 million.
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Join the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics for their 10th Annual European Compliance & Ethics Institute, which will be taking place both in-person and virtually to learn about the challenges facing the European and global compliance and ethics community. Hear from today’s compliance and ethics leaders on the latest solutions to your challenges, hear strategies to mitigate risk, and improve your organisation’s compliance program. ECEI’s educational sessions will provide you with the opportunity to earn live Compliance Certification Board (CCB)® continuing education units (CEUs).
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The COVID-19 crisis is creating big financial problems for many corporates, particularly when current government support comes to an end. The banks are insufficiently prepared to deal with those problems, as former banker and restructuring consultant Rob Wijman writes in his book Heavy Weather Banking. ‘Just like a hospital, a bank needs an Intensive Care department with sufficiently skilled staff.’

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The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has recently published a Practices Paper on the Execution of Bail-in. Bail-in is at the core of resolution strategies for global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). Set out in the Key Attributes of Effective Resolution Regimes for Financial Institutions, it is an important tool enabling an orderly resolution that minimises any impact on financial stability and ensures the continuity of critical functions, without exposing taxpayers to loss. Continue reading…

The FCA has recently confirmed a series of rule changes to ensure that the UK’s public markets remain a trusted and attractive place to list successful companies, providing opportunities for companies to grow from which investors will benefit. The reforms address, and build on, a number of the recommendations made in the UK Listing Review and the Kalifa Review of UK FinTech, with the FCA seizing the opportunity to update its rules to respond to the changing nature of companies looking to list while maintaining high standards for UK public markets. Continue reading…

The 2021 Global Insurance Market Report (GIMAR) reports on the outcome of the 2021 Global Monitoring Exercise (GME), the IAIS’ risk assessment framework to monitor key risks and trends and to detect the potential build-up of systemic risk in the global insurance sector. The report also provides an update on the outcome of the Covid-19 targeted assessment based on year-end 2020 data. The GME builds on data collected from approximately 60 of the largest international insurance groups (individual insurer monitoring or IIM) and aggregate sector-wide data from supervisors across the globe (sector-wide monitoring or SWM), covering over 90% of global written premiums. Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker

Risk & Compliance Platform Europe had the chance to interview Mike Kessler, the Chief Executive Officer, on his new revolutionizing project, the launch of a new stock exchange called Tokenise. Tokenise will be one of the first fully regulated global stock exchanges for security tokens in the world. Tokenise is democratizing ownership by allowing anybody to own and sell a portion of what they love, as well as allowing asset owners and artists to receive formerly untapped revenue. Through Tokenise, for the very first time, people can now participate in fractional ownership or royalties by investing in security tokens on a stock exchange fully regulated in Barbados.

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Corruption is a cancer within the body of societies—a disease that eats at public trust and the ability of governments to deliver for their citizens. The deleterious effects of corruption impact nearly all aspects of society. It exacerbates social, political, and economic inequality and polarisation; impedes the ability of states to respond to public health crises or to deliver quality education; degrades the business environment and economic opportunity; drives conflict; and undermines faith in government. Those that abuse positions of power for private gain steal not just material wealth, but human dignity and welfare. Recognising corruption’s ability to corrode democracy, on June 3, 2021, President Biden established the fight against corruption as a core U.S. national security interest. Continue reading…

Sunrise Brokers LLP has been fined over £600,000 for deficient anti money laundering systems and controls. This is the second case brought by the FCA in relation to cum-ex trading, dividend arbitrage and withholding tax (WHT) reclaim schemes. The first FCA case relating to cum-ex trading concluded in May 2021. The FCA found that Sunrise had deficient systems and controls to identify and mitigate the risk of facilitating fraudulent trading and money laundering in relation to business introduced by the Solo Group, between 17 February 2015 and 4 November 2015. Continue reading…