An alleged criminal network of copyright infringement hackers was recently dismantled by US authorities and their counterparts in 18 countries where they also received a great amount of support from Eurojust and Europol. This criminal network was known for pirating movies and distributing the illegal digital contents around the world. In a great coordinated effort, more than 60 servers were taken out of service in North America, Asia and Europe and several members of the criminal network were apprehended and taken in by the authorities. This crime group’s illegal activities ended up having significant negative effects, costing tens of millions of USD in losses annually to the US movie, television and other entertainment industries. Continue reading…

TikTok, the widely used Chinese video sharing social networking app, does not seem to protect children that use the app. Such findings have been revealed by the Dutch Foundation for Market Information Research (SOMI), which will continue its research into the business model and practices of the TikTok app. Moreover, the app most likely also gathers unauthorised personal information from its users, especially from minors. If these findings were found to be correct, then this would mean that TikTok would be violating the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations. If they decided to follow up on this, SOMI could potentially stand up against the app’s apparent disregard of the European regulations and also introduce increased supervision measures while children use the app to reassure parents that are concerned. Continue reading…

The European Commission has concluded its exploratory talks with Moderna to purchase a potential vaccine against COVID-19. Moderna is the fifth company with which the Commission has concluded talks, following Sanofi-GSK on 31 July, Johnson & Johnson on 13 August, CureVac on 18 August, in addition to the signature of an Advance Purchase Agreement with AstraZeneca on 14 August. The envisaged contract with Moderna would provide for the possibility for all EU Member States to purchase the vaccine, as well as to donate to lower and middle income countries or re-direct to European countries. Continue reading…

The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures recently released an analysis of new data on correspondent banking for 2019. The number of active correspondent banks worldwide fell by about 3% in 2019 and about 22% between 2011 and 2019. Over the last eight years, the rate of decline has varied across jurisdictions and is more pronounced in emerging market economies and small island developing states and dependent territories. Continue reading…

The European Central Bank (ECB) and Народна банка на Република Северна Македонија (National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia) have agreed to set up a repo line arrangement to provide euro liquidity to the Republic of North Macedonia’s financial institutions through the central bank to address possible euro liquidity needs in the presence of market dysfunctions due to the COVID-19 shock.  Continue reading…

The Czech-Slovakian website will go live early in September. The European Compliance Center headed by Elina Karpacheva on the one hand and the Risk & Compliance Platform Europe headed by Michel Klompmaker are proud to announce that the existing cooperation will be further extended to the Czech Republic and Slovakia under the leadership of Dr. Branislav Hock. The two countries Czech Republic and Slovakia will be served substantively in their own language from the beginning of September. As is known, the Risk & Compliance Platform Europe has set itself the goal of providing risk and compliance professionals with unique content wherever possible in their own languages. The different language sites each have their own content that suits their own language area and national circumstances. Continue reading…

In recent years, the growth of technology-related threats has increased the importance of banks’ operational resilience. The Covid-19 pandemic has made the need to address these threats even more pressing. Given the critical role played by banks in the global financial system, increasing banks’ resilience to absorb shocks from operational risks, such as those arising from pandemics, cyber incidents, technology failures or natural disasters, will provide additional safeguards to the financial system as a whole. Continue reading…

John C. Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, recently gave a speech at the 16th Meeting of the Financial Research Advisory Committee for the Treasury’s Office of Financial Research. He shared his remarks via a teleconference: Good morning. Over the past four months we have experienced a series of unprecedented events. The pandemic, social distancing, and the economic fallout have transformed all of our lives. This summer, many Americans will be grieving the loss of loved ones, and many more will be faced with financial hardship and concern about the uncertainty of the future. Continue reading…

Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, recently gave a keynote speech via video conference from Singapore. COVID-19 has triggered the sharpest contraction in the global economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. We can expect a gradual recovery from the third quarter onwards as countries re-open their economies. But there is considerable uncertainty about the strength and durability of this recovery. The trajectory of the economy will be largely shaped by the trajectory of the pandemic – which is itself a significant source of uncertainty. The risk of secondary waves of infection is not trivial. Those countries that have put in place strong safe management measures and a robust regime of testing, contact tracing, and swift isolation of infected persons, are more likely to minimise a second outbreak of infections and sustain their economic recovery.  Continue reading…