Mr. John C Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, made some remarks via a videoconference at the Council on Foreign Relations on 14 January 2022. For past two years, I’ve begun my remarks by saying how much I wish we could meet together in person. This time, I really was hoping for a chance to rewrite the script. After seeing so much progress on vaccinations over the past year and a moderation in COVID-19 infections during the fall, just a short time ago many of us had expected that we’d soon be turning the page. Continue reading…

The Higher Regional Court of Koblenz in Germany sentenced a former Syrian high-ranking official today to life imprisonment for his involvement in crimes against humanity. A German-French joint investigation team (JIT), which was set up with support of Eurojust and the Genocide Network, made a significant contribution to those investigations that led to this landmark judgment. The judgment is the first time worldwide that a high-ranking Syrian official has been convicted for crimes against humanity. As such, it will leave a lasting mark on international criminal justice. Continue reading…

KPMG has apologised for misconduct and misleading the UK’s accounting regulator after former auditors were accused of “forgery” related to audits including that of Carillion, the major government contractor that collapsed four years ago. Jon Holt, the chief executive of KPMG UK, said it was “clear” that misconduct had occurred, in a statement published to mark the start of a disciplinary tribunal on Monday. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has alleged that KPMG misled its investigators over routine inspections of the audits of Carillion and the software company Regenersis, in 2016 and 2014 respectively. The FRC has alleged that “relevant individuals acted with a lack of integrity in dishonestly or recklessly misleading the regulator”, according to tribunal documents. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority has published a Decision Notice against BlueCrest Capital Management (UK) LLP (BCMUK) setting out its decision to impose a financial penalty of £40,806,700 on the firm. BCMUK has elected to refer the case directly to the Upper Tribunal which will determine the appropriate action, if any, for the FCA to take. The FCA considers that, between 1 October 2011 and 31 December 2015, BCMUK failed to manage fairly a conflict of interest created by allocating portfolio managers working on an external fund, open to investors outside BlueCrest, to an internal fund, open only to its partners and employees.

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The Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) yesterday elected as its new Chair, François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France. His term is for a period of three years, commencing on 12 January 2022. Mr. Villeroy de Galhau succeeds Jens Weidmann who served as Chair of the Board until the end of December 2021 when he concluded his tenure as President of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

Members of the Board of Directors expressed their sincere gratitude to Mr Weidmann for his excellent services to the Bank during his chairmanship.

The Board is responsible for determining the strategic and policy direction of the BIS, supervising its Management, and fulfilling the specific tasks given to it by the Bank’s Statutes.

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The FCA has recently published a Discussion Paper aimed at maintaining a compensation framework that provides appropriate protection for consumers, funded in a fair and sustainable way. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) provides compensation when certain authorised financial services firms are unable to meet claims against them. The FSCS plays a critical backstop role in protecting consumers and ensuring confidence in financial services markets. Continue reading…

Integrating a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) into existing core banking systems is complex and a key prerequisite for issuance. Phase II of Project Helvetia successfully demonstrates that such integration is operationally possible. Issuing a wholesale CBDC on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform operated and owned by a private sector company is feasible under Swiss law. The second phase of Project Helvetia is a joint experiment by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and SIX (Switzerland’s main provider of financial infrastructure services), which also included five commercial banks: Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg and UBS. Continue reading…

The European Central Bank (ECB) has taken the next step in the project to develop the Integrated Reporting Framework (IReF). This harmonised statistical reporting system is intended to make it easier for banks to report statistical data to the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and to reduce their reporting burden by leveraging digitalisation and state-of-the-art production organisation. At the same time, the system will facilitate policymakers’ analysis and comparison of such data. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has commenced criminal proceedings against the two former directors of Collateral (UK) Ltd (Collateral), Peter Currie and Andrew Currie, who each face two charges under the Fraud Act 2006 and one charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2000.  The FCA alleges that the Curries, who are brothers, dishonestly represented to investors that Collateral was authorised and regulated by the FCA to operate as a peer-to-peer lender knowing this was untrue. Continue reading…