Eurojust and the Attorney General of Nigeria, Mr Lateef Olasunkanmi Fagbemi, signed on 9 November a Working Arrangement to enable structured and closer cooperation in the fight against organised crime groups (OCGs). This paves the way for the establishment of a Contact Point for Eurojust in Nigeria and closer communication for the swifter execution of requests for judicial cooperation on both sides. Nigeria is the first sub-Saharan African country to sign a Working Arrangement with the Agency.
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The Commission welcomes the final agreement reached by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU at the final trilogue on the Regulation introducing European Digital Identity Wallets. This concludes the co-legislators’ work implementing the results of the provisional political agreement reached on 29 June 2023 on a legal framework for an EU Digital Identity, the first trusted and secure digital identity framework for all Europeans. This marks an important step towards the Digital Decade 2030 targets on the digitalisation of public services. All EU citizens will be offered the possibility to have an EU Digital Identity Wallet to access public and private online services in full security and protection of personal data all over Europe. Continue reading…

It is true. The Risk & Compliance Platform Europe is for sale because it appears that Founder and Managing Director Michel Klompmaker will no longer be able to further develop the platform in the long term due to a serious illness.

The activities of this European platform, i.e. the content of the various language websites, the newsletters in different languages, the databases, the associated conferences and special conference websites and the LinkedIn company pages, are housed in the private company International Publishing & Sales bv in Amsterdam

Interested parties in taking over the platform, the websites, the associated conferences, etc. can contact the advisor that Michel has engaged for this purpose, namely Johan Ooms from Clairfield via his e-mail, jooms@clairfield.com

If there is serious interest, Johan can then send an Info Deck to interested parties and he will further guide the sales process.

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New research from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) shows that there has been a significant increase in the use of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL). The news comes as the FCA has secured further changes to potentially unfair and unclear contract terms for unregulated BNPL firms. The data, which is part of the FCA’s Financial Lives research, shows that 27% of UK adults (approximately 14 million) have used BNPL at least once in the six months prior to January 2023. This is up from 17% who said they had used it in the preceding 12 months in May 2022.     Continue reading…

The joint efforts across the European Union to fight terrorism will be stepped up by judicial authorities sharing a wider range of information on terrorism cases with Eurojust. EU Member States have an improved legal basis to inform on ongoing and concluded terrorism cases with the entry into force today of an amendment of the Eurojust Regulation. These data will be transmitted to the European Judicial Counter-Terrorism Register (CTR) managed by Eurojust. This will help to better detect links between terrorism cases or connections with other serious crimes.

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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned Geoffrey Armin from advising customers on pension transfers and pension opt outs, and from holding any senior management function in a regulated firm. The FCA found that Mr Armin, while running Retirement and Pension Planning Services Limited (dissolved), was seriously incompetent when advising on defined benefit (DB) pension transfers. Mr Armin advised 422 customers on the transfer of their DB pensions, including 183 members of the British Steel Pension Scheme – 174 of whom transferred out of the scheme following his recommendation. Continue reading…

The European Commission has fined Alkaloids of Australia, Alkaloids Corporation, Boehringer, Linnea and Transo-Pharm a total of €13,4 million for participating in a cartel concerning an important pharmaceutical ingredient. C2 PHARMA was not fined as it revealed the cartel to the Commission under the leniency programme. All six companies admitted their involvement in the cartel and agreed to settle the case. The product concerned by the cartel is N-Butylbromide Scopolamine/ Hyoscine (‘SNBB’). SNBB is an important input material to produce the abdominal antispasmodic drug Buscopan and its generic versions. The Commission’s investigation revealed that the six companies coordinated and agreed to fix the minimum sales price of SNBB to customers (i.e., distributors and generic drug manufacturers) and to allocate quotas. In addition, the companies exchanged commercially sensitive information.
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A new study from the Open Finance technology and advisory services provider Konsentus has found that there are now more than 65 national open banking programs globally. Konsentus has updated its Global Open Banking and Open Finance Map to include richer data on the evolution of open banking across the world. It reveals that open banking, the new wave of financial data access, has reached a significant milestone, with 68 countries (representing 35% of the world) either live or in development. The Konsentus study showed there is a clear regulatory push towards open banking, with 64% of open banking initiatives being mandatory via legislation. Continue reading…

The EU and Japan have concluded, on the margins of the G7 Trade Ministerial in Osaka, a landmark deal to make doing business in the online world easier, less costly and more efficient. The agreement was concluded at the EU-Japan High-Level Economic Dialogue (HLED), co-chaired by European Commission Executive Vice-President, Valdis Dombrovskis, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Nishimura Yasutoshi, and Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yōko Kamikawa. The EU and Japan are both among the world’s largest digital economies. This deal is a milestone in our joint efforts to advance the digitalisation of our societies and economies. Cross-border data flows are a crucial enabler to this development. Once ratified, the agreed provisions will be included in the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). They lay the foundation for a common approach on digital trade, sending a strong message against digital protectionism and arbitrary restrictions. They are also consistent with the EU digital agenda and EU privacy rules, and deliver on the digital trade agenda of the EU’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. Similar negotiations with Korea and Singapore are due to follow. Continue reading…

by Christine Lagarde

I would like to thank the Bank of Greece for hosting our dinner tonight (October 25th). And thank you for the tremendous effort you have put into organising this external Governing Council meeting at your impressive headquarters here in Athens. Standing in this hall, I am struck by the overwhelming sense of continuity with the past. So much of what we consider to be European civilisation has emerged from these surroundings. This is the home of Pericles and the cradle of democracy. It gave us Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the foundations of our philosophy. The ancient Greeks taught us mathematics via Euclid, science via Archimedes and poetry through Homer. And this is not to mention the timeless contributions to theatre, art and architecture that Greek civilisation has bequeathed to us. Continue reading…