by Geert Vermeulen

Often ethics & compliance officers only end up in the news when things have gone wrong. Many people don’t realise that ethics & compliance officers also prevent numerous crimes and unethical practices, sometimes at the risk of being fired or by risking our health or even our lives. Usually you don’t hear about these cases. I think that we should be more proud of our profession and inform a broader audience what we do to reduce risk and stimulate better business. The final part in this series of “WOW Moments in Compliance,” will be about the World Economic Forum in Davos. The first two parts covered due diligence in the aviation industry and due diligence in the energy industry. The third part was about change of strategy and the fourth part was about ‘those wonderful Greeks.’  Continue reading…

On January 31, the UK officially left the European Union. During the time following the 2016 referendum, the departments within the UK had to brace themselves and prepare for the uncertain outcomes that could potentially result from the UK’s eventual departure. The National Audit Office (NAO) ended up reviewing around 27 reports on the departments’ work, which illustrates the intensity and scale of the task that lay ahead. As such a task can be complex, these departments were not able to think of and plan in advance for every conceivable scenario and outcome. Between 2016-17 and 2019-20, HM Treasury made about £6.3 billion of added funding available, which would help cover the cost of the UK government’s preparations for their exit from the EU. Continue reading…

by Geert Vermeulen

Often ethics & compliance officers only end up in the news when things have gone wrong. Many people don’t realise that ethics & compliance officers also prevent numerous crimes and unethical practices, sometimes at the risk of being fired or by risking our health or even our lives. Usually you don’t hear about these cases. Therefore, I decided to share a couple WOW moments in compliance. The first article in this series of ‘WOW Moments in Compliance’ was about a case study regarding due diligence in the aviation industry while the second article was on due diligence in the energy industry. The third part, which was published last week was on change of strategy and now this fourth article is on ‘these wonderful Greeks’. Continue reading…

by Geert Vermeulen

Often ethics & compliance officers only end up in the news when things have gone wrong. Many people don’t realise that ethics & compliance officers also prevent numerous crimes and unethical practices, sometimes at the risk of being fired or by risking our health or even our lives. Usually you don’t hear about these cases. Therefore, I decided to share a couple WOW moments in compliance.  The first part of this series of articles was about due diligence in the aviation industry and the second part that was published last week discussed due diligence in the energy industry. The third section will seek to discuss change of strategy.  Continue reading…

by Geert Vermeulen

Often ethics & compliance officers only end up in the news when things have gone wrong. Many people don’t realise that ethics & compliance officers also prevent numerous crimes and unethical practices, sometimes at the risk of being fired or by risking our health or even our lives. Usually you don’t hear about these cases. Therefore, I decided to share a couple WOW moments in compliance.The first part of the article that has been published last week discussed the case study of due diligence in the aviation industry. Now, in this second part, another example will be discussed, which is that of due diligence in the energy industry. Continue reading…

by Geert Vermeulen

This article is the first of a series of five articles and will be published in five parts. The second part will be published next week. Often ethics & compliance officers only end up in the news when things have gone wrong. Like in the recent money laundering scandals in the banking industry. In many of these cases, it was actually the management that decided that doing business was more important than being compliant and didn’t invest sufficiently in proper compliance controls and resources. Many people don’t realise that ethics & compliance officers also prevent numerous crimes. Continue reading…

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against Guy S. Griffithe and Robert W. Russell, and three companies they controlled, for an alleged scheme that defrauded investors who thought they were purchasing interests in a Washington-licensed recreational cannabis company out of approximately $4.85 million. The SEC’s complaint alleges that between August 2015 and December 2017, Griffithe, of California, used Renewable Technologies Solution, Inc., an entity he controlled, to sell investors purported ownership interests in SMRB LLC, a Washington company owned by Russell that held a license to grow marijuana under the state’s recreational cannabis laws.

Continue reading…

by Ahsan Habib

It seems to be a reasonable enough assumption that a dedicated money launderer would be able to utilise crowdfunding to wash their dirty money.The features facilitating the exploitation of crowdfunding for money laundering include the lack of legal regulations imposing a direct obligation to identify clients of crowdfunding platforms, as well as the absence of supervision of their activities. This can generate such threats as the mingling of income from legal and illegal sources, transferring criminal proceeds to persons conducting crowdfunding, and legitimating assets through the organisation of crowdfunding campaigns.
Continue reading…