Judicial and law enforcement authorities in Belgium, France and the Netherlands have in close cooperation enabled major interventions to block the further use of encrypted communications by large-scale organised crime groups (OCGs), with the support of Europol and Eurojust. The continuous monitoring of the illegal Sky ECC communication service tool by investigators in the three countries involved has provided invaluable insights into hundreds of millions of messages exchanged between criminals. This has resulted in the collection of crucial information on over a hundred of planned large-scale criminal operations, preventing potential life threatening situations and possible victims. Continue reading…

The European Banking Authority (EBA) recently published its Consumer Trends Report for 2020/2021. The Report identifies topical issues including irresponsible lending, creditworthiness assessments, and digitalisation, which the EBA has addressed, as well as others, such as selling practices and access to bank account, which it has recently started to work on. The Report also explains the measures the EBA has taken to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumers. In this Report, the EBA observed that mortgages continue to have a big impact on consumers’ personal finances, representing 79% of loans to households. During the same period, the volume of consumer credit has increased by 14%, and that of deposits by 14.6%. In both mortgages and consumer credit, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a heightened engagement between lenders and borrowers with a focus on the use of moratoria and government guarantees. The EBA has supported such initiatives, with the aim of supporting the short-term operational and liquidity challenges faced by borrowers. Continue reading…

by Dina-Perla Portnaar

Spiritual care delivery has proven beneficial to patients, families and front-line healthcare providers, especially in times of COVID-19. As the negative stressors continue to rise, the need for a compassionate and caring presence becomes all the more apparent. However, there is a lack of Chaplaincy representation at the highest organisational levels, which entails many risks. This is a global issue – in fact, in all sorts of institutions. For example, if we would do a search on ‘Chief Spiritual Officer’ via LinkedIn, not a whole lot of results would show up. ‘Chief Spiritual Officers: advocating for spiritual care leadership’ was the central theme of the digital round table / panel discussion on 25th February 2021. In other words, caring for the human spirit with integrity, grace and safety. We examined how best to define the Chief Spiritual Officer, the qualifications for assuming a spiritual leadership role and how this impacts advocating for spiritual care delivery in hospice and in other organisational structures. Continue reading…

The EU and U.S. recently agreed to suspend all retaliatory tariffs on EU and U.S. exports imposed in the Airbus and Boeing disputes for a four-month period. The suspension allows both sides to focus on resolving this long-running dispute. It provides an important boost to EU exporters, since the U.S. had been authorised to raise tariffs on $7.5 billion of EU exports to the U.S. Similarly, EU tariffs will be suspended on some $4 billion worth of U.S. exports into the EU.
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The Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has re-elected Jens Weidmann, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, as Chair of the BIS Board for a third three-year term. The term will commence on 1 November 2021, after Mr. Weidmann’s current term of office expires. He first assumed his responsibilities as Chair of the BIS Board on 1 November 2015. Continue reading…

by Frank Staelens

What is the scope and which extensions are already being considered? 

Applicability: all private and public organisations based in Europe, with exemptions for small organisations Deadline: Member States have up till 17 December 2021 to transpose the new whistleblower protection rules into national law Scope of protection: all internal and external persons related to the reporting of wrongdoing in a work related context Scope of breaches: protection of persons reporting on breaches of Union law and Member States are encouraged to extend the scope to national law breaches Some Member States have already decided to extend the scope to violations of accounting rules and shareholder rights

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The European Banking Authority (EBA) recently published its final revised Guidelines on money laundering and terrorist financing risk factors. The revisions take into account changes to the EU Anti Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT) legal framework and address new ML/TF risks, including those identified by the EBA’s implementation reviews. In addition to strengthening financial institutions’ risk-based approaches to AML/CFT, the revision supports the development of more effective and consistent supervisory approaches where evidence suggested that divergent approaches continue to exist. The Guidelines are central to the EBA’s work to lead, coordinate and monitor the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Continue reading…

International Women’s Day is a global day that celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. It is a focal point in the movement for women’s rights. Women of the world want and deserve an equal future free from stigma, stereotypes and violence; a future that’s sustainable, peaceful, with equal rights and opportunities for all. To get us there, the world needs women at every table where decisions are being made. This year, the theme for International Women’s Day is, “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world,” and it celebrates the tremendous efforts made by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic while also highlighting the gaps that remain. Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker

Economic crime scholarship presents an organisation as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, organisations are cheated by their employees, discriminated by corrupt public officials, and face cyberattacks, whereas on the other hand, organisations evade taxes, defraud their customers, and cheat competitors. While fraud, corruption and other forms of economic crime cause immense losses to individual organisations as well to society, many of those crimes are committed by organisations themselves. On Thursday, February 4, 2021 the 2nd Winter Economic Crime Symposium – Organizations: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators was held online by the Centre for Counter-Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth. The event sought to explore the network of relationships inside and between organisations and how it should not be reduced to two groups, victims and perpetrators. With a theme focused on economic crime, several professionals gave keynote presentations on a range of topics from brand protection, corruption, corporate compliance, foreign bribery, and intellectual property (IP) crime. The Risk & Compliance Platform Europe was also a media partner and covered the event via its website. This is the final part. Continue reading…

The European Commission recently adopted an Action Plan to support the recovery and transformation of the media and audiovisual sector. These sectors, particularly hit by the coronavirus crisis, are essential for democracy, Europe’s cultural diversity and digital autonomy. The Action Plan focuses on three areas of activity and 10 concrete actions to help the media sector recover from the crisis by facilitating and broadening access to finance, transform by stimulating investments to embrace the twin digital and green transitions while ensuring the sector’s future resilience and empower European citizens and companies. Under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, each National Recovery and Resilience Plan will earmark a minimum level of 20% of expenditure for digital. Measures to boost the production and distribution of digital content, such as digital media, will count towards this target. Continue reading…