During an action day, 11 suspects were arrested in Romania, Belgium and Austria, accused of stealing at least EUR 420 000 using cloned fuel cards in Belgium. In Romania, a total of 115 law enforcement officers from different units were deployed, including those specialising in combating organised crime. Eurojust supported the investigation led by Belgian authorities. The perpetrators allegedly used various skimming techniques to obtain the electronic data contained on the magnetic stripe of the original fuel cards and their PIN codes. With these electronic data, they cloned fuel cards that, with the use of the PIN code, allowed them to buy fuel and to upload money to the Belgian road-toll-reporting device without the intention of ever paying these amounts. Continue reading…

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has on March 10th published its peer review report on the supervision of cross-border activities of investment firms. With this peer review, ESMA is also issuing Article 16 recommendations to the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), the first time ESMA has issued such recommendations to a National Competent Authority (NCA). ESMA identifies in the peer review the need for home NCAs to significantly improve their approach in the authorisation, ongoing supervision and enforcement work, relating to investment firm’s cross border activities. This includes calibrating their supervisory work to the nature, scale and complexity of those firms’ cross-border activities and the risks they pose. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is taking assertive action to tackle harm in the consumer investments market, as data recently published shows it has stopped 1 in 4 firms from entering this market. The FCA is also urging consumers to be InvestSmart and ScamSmart, following an increase in the number of scams being reported to it. Between April and September last year, the FCA received 16,400 enquires about possible scams, up nearly a third from the same period in 2020. The top types of scams being reported to the FCA included cryptoasset, boiler room and recovery room scams. Continue reading…

The European Commission welcomes today’s agreement by the Council to adopt a fourth package of restrictive measures against Russia in response to its brutal aggression against Ukraine and its people. These sanctions will further contribute to ramping up economic pressure on the Kremlin and cripple its ability to finance its invasion of Ukraine. They have been coordinated with international partners, notably the United States.
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The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation to assess whether an agreement between Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) for online display advertising services may have breached EU competition rules. Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: ”Many publishers rely on online display advertising to fund online content for consumers. Via the so-called “Jedi Blue” agreement between Google and Meta, a competing technology to Google’s Open Bidding may have been targeted with the aim to weaken it and exclude it from the market for displaying ads on publisher websites and apps. If confirmed by our investigation, this would restrict and distort competition in the already concentrated ad tech market, to the detriment of rival ad serving technologies, publishers and ultimately consumers.”
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Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, and Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, made a statement on the 10th of March 2022 with regards to the Ukraine-Russia War. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a watershed for Europe. The Governing Council expresses its full support to the people of Ukraine. We will ensure smooth liquidity conditions and implement the sanctions decided by the European Union and European governments. We will take whatever action is needed to fulfil the ECB’s mandate to pursue price stability and to safeguard financial stability. Continue reading…

On 16 December 2020, the Parliament and the Council adopted a regulation 1 which establishes a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget in the case of breaches of the principles of the rule of law in a Member State. In order to attain that objective, the regulation allows the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, to adopt protective measures such as the suspension of payments to be made from the Union budget or the suspension of the approval of one or more programmes to be paid from that budget. 2 Continue reading…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has published a discussion paper on February 22nd on debt overhang issues of non-financial corporates in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This follows the FSB’s report on COVID-19 support measures, published in April 2021, which noted the unprecedented level of debt of non-financial companies, resulting largely from massive credit provision by the public sector (both directly and through loan guarantees) during the pandemic. The report identified debt overhang as a significant risk that could arise from prolonged policy support measures. Continue reading…

Eurojust supported the Romanian and Italian authorities in an investigation that concluded with the indictment of five Italian citizens accused of defrauding the EU of at least EUR 800 000 worth of EU agricultural funds. The fraudsters and four companies they set up first face trial in Romania. A trial for self money laundering will take place in Italy at a later date. Judicial authorities from Romania and Italy met yesterday in Enna, Italy, to evaluate the joint investigation team (JIT) that unveiled the fraud. The case was brought to Eurojust by the Romanian authorities in 2019. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has on March 1st set out a new employment offer designed to reward strong, consistent performance, aid career development and close pay gaps. This follows an extensive, wide-ranging and comprehensive consultation with all FCA colleagues and the FCA’s Staff Consultative Committee.  The changes, including updates to the proposals consulted upon, will mean that the FCA continues to provide one of the best reward packages of any regulator or enforcement agency in the UK. Continue reading…