by Michel Klompmaker & Dina-Perla Portnaar

We are all familiar with the supermarket chains Ahold and Delhaize, which a few years ago merged into one multinational company with roots in the Netherlands and Belgium. This multinational company has major interests on the other side of the Atlantic and in many European countries with its supermarkets. To get an idea of ​​the size: In the third quarter of 2020, worldwide sales amounted to 17.8 billion euros, which is 10 percent more compared to the third quarter of 2019. That things are not going too badly for this multinational is evident from the report beginning of November. A new large-scale share buyback program for an amount of EUR 1 billion has been announced at the headquarters in Zaandam, the Netherlands. This purchasing program will start in early 2021. What is wrong with that? Nothing at all in itself, but much further from the Zaandam headquarters, in Indonesia, something is wrong. There, Ahold Delhaize is accused of serious animal cruelty. How has that come about exactly? We recently spoke about it exclusively with Erwin Vermeulen of Animal Rights. Continue reading…

The European Central Bank (ECB) will launch an independent review of an incident that affected its real-time gross settlement system TARGET2 on 23 October 2020, causing an outage for almost 10 hours. An initial investigation determined that a software defect in a network device was the specific technical cause of the incident. The independent review will also take into account other incidents that affected TARGET Services during 2020, including those affecting directly and indirectly TARGET2 Securities (T2S), the securities settlement platform operated by the Eurosystem. Continue reading…

Battlefield evidence, such as photos depicting crimes committed against civilians, fingerprints on explosive devices and e-mails describing terrorist plots, is increasingly being used to prosecute suspects of terrorism and core international crimes, including returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters. The 2020 Memorandum on Battlefield Evidence, which was published recently by Eurojust, the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, shows that while there are many challenges in obtaining such data and making sure it meets the criteria for admissible evidence, it has paved the way for bringing terrorist suspects to trial. Continue reading…

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU securities markets regulator, recently published its second risk dashboard for 2020 which sees a continued risk of decoupling between asset valuations and economic fundamentals. During the third quarter of 2020, EU financial markets have continued their recovery and equity market valuations have edged up further. There are increasing signs of strong geographical and sectorial differentiation across financial markets with fixed income markets seeing large-scale valuation increases across various segments such as emerging markets, investment grade and high yield. Credit rating downgrades have been slowing and investment funds recorded inflows across asset classes, especially for bond funds.

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Nikhil Rathi, Chief Executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently gave a speech addressed to the City Regulators, Mansion House. Lord Mayor, thank you for the invitation to speak today. I’m pleased to join Sam Woods this evening. His measured, confident leadership at the PRA has ensured the close partnership of the two financial regulators. I look forward to our continued work together. I am just one month in to my term as CEO of the Financial Conduct Authority.  And you may be aware that the Government has recently proposed legislation enabling the CEO of the FCA to serve a maximum two terms. And having researched your background, Lord Mayor, I have much to learn from you.  As due to the current unusual circumstances, you are the first Lord Mayor to serve two terms since Sir Robert Fowler in 1885. Continue reading…

A broad common approach, involving administrations such as civil registries and consulates, is instrumental to tackling the fraud and abuse perpetrated by Organised Criminal Groups (OCGs) via sham marriages. In addition, further enhancement of judicial cooperation and the coordination of investigations at EU level will give extra impetus to the fight to thwart those arranging marriages of this kind. These are the main recommendations made by Eurojust, the European Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, in a report which was adopted recently.  Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan

We recently conducted an interview together with Magali Logossou who is a Global Audit Manager Forensics by the Heineken company. We focused on the topic of conducting fraud investigations within organisations during the Covid-19 pandemic, which Magali Logossou gave her insights on given her expert opinion in the fields of internal auditing and forensic practices. Hello Magali, you have an impressive international career in France, UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands with in depth knowledge of internal audit and forensic practices. Based on your experience, on which 2-3 main points would you advise organisations to focus on to prevent or significantly minimise the probability of fraud occurring within an organisation? Continue reading…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) recently published a discussion paper for public consultation, on Regulatory and Supervisory Issues Relating to Outsourcing and Third-Party Relationships. The discussion paper draws on findings from a survey conducted among the FSB members. Financial institutions have relied on outsourcing and other third-party relationships for decades. However, in recent years, the extent and nature of interactions with a broad and diverse ecosystem of third parties has evolved, particularly in the area of technology. The financial sector’s recent response to COVID-19 highlights the benefits as well as the challenges of managing the risks of financial institutions’ interactions with third parties. The pandemic may have also accelerated the trend towards greater reliance on certain third-party technologies. Continue reading…

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently published the European System of Central Banks’ (ESCB) input into a European Banking Authority (EBA) feasibility report on reducing the reporting burden for the European banking industry. Under Article 430c of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR), the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union mandated the EBA to carry out a feasibility study and requested that input from the ESCB be taken into account. Continue reading…