Compliance Clarified – a podcast by Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence Thomson Reuters

In this episode Lindsey Rogerson, senior editor, is joined by Trond Vagen, senior editor for European Financial Markets Regulation, to discuss the mounting sustainability-related workload for bank and investment compliance officers.

Trond discusses the European Central Bank’s (ECB) expectations for banks to accurately assess the climate and environmental risks on their balance sheets. With just nine months remaining before the deadline and the possibility of daily fines, increased capital requirements and a fit and proper assessment for institutions that get it wrong, time is running out.

Lindsey runs through the additions to sustainability legislation made in the last few weeks. The EU parliament’s five-year term is drawing to an end and there has been a wave of regulations and directives in the sustainability space that will impact the work of compliance officers for years to come.

There has also been some tinkering with regulations that have already passed as politicians seeking re-election strive to appease some of their more vocal voters.


Links:
Frank Elderson speech: https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/press/speeches/speaker/vice-chair/html/index.en.html


Compliance Clarified is a podcast from Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.
Listen to wide-ranging, insightful discussions on all things compliance for financial services firms. We delve into the hot topics of the day, the challenges faced and offer up practical ideas for emerging good practice. We de-mystify regulation and explore the art, as well as the science, of the ever-expanding role of the compliance officer.  Enforcements, digital transformation, regulatory change, governance, culture, conduct risk – anything and everything impacting the compliance function is up for discussion.

In this episode Rachel Wolcott, senior editor, welcomes special guest Justine Walker to the podcast. Justine is the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists' (ACAMS) global head–sanctions, compliance, and risk and its vice-president for thought leadership. She is an expert on sanctions, counterterrorism, and financial crime she has held specialist positions within the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, HM Treasury, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and UK Finance.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 ushered in a new set of unprecedented sanctions, including the imposition of a novel oil price cap, meant to stop Russia selling oil above $60 a barrel. But Russia seems to be able to get everything it needs to keep the war going. Justine expects enforcement action to unfold as the year progresses.

"We're entering into a much more aggressive phase regarding the price cap, we've got new price capacitation requirements, we've had a flurry of new guidance. We're probably going to see this play out in terms of more enforcement, and I think this year is going to be pretty informative in terms of how the oil price cap will end up being in terms of a longer-term tool," Justine told Compliance Clarified.

Justine emphasized the importance of Executive Order 14114, signed last year by President Biden, which ratchets up secondary sanction risk for non-U.S. financial institutions which give direct support to Russia's military-industrial base but also for indirect assistance, such as facilitating customers' dealings or providing services to customer transactions related to Russia's military-industrial base.

Justine explained the convergence of export controls with anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions compliance. She emphasized the need for financial institutions to be proactive in identifying sensitive technologies and strategic trade, which are increasingly becoming a focus for the Group of Seven governments.

"One of the big challenges is this merger between export control requirements, AML and sanctions. There's been more of a nexus between AML and sanctions, but the nexus with export controls has not been there to what we're now seeing is being asked. We're seeing much greater expectations from governments, that financial institutions will become more proactive in their thinking around their role in sensitive technology, strategic trade, export control, and that is a whole area of speciality in itself" Justine said.

Links:
ACAMS's Global Threat Report: https://www.acamstoday.org/global-afc-threats-report/

INSIGHT: Latest U.S. warnings to foreign banks doing significant Russia business may herald sanctions
enforcement action
Inside Paywall: http://go-ri.tr.com/3ZIw6B
Outside Paywall: https://regintel-content.thomsonreuters.com/document/I899083B0DCA811EE925AD4411E508A2D/INSIGHT:-Latest-U.S.-warnings-to-foreign-banks-doing-significant-Russia-business-may-herald-sanctions-enforcement-action-07-03-2024

U.S. targets Russian "malign activities" linked to Wagner Group in Central African Republic: https://regintel-content.thomsonreuters.com/document/I87D16B80DD8D11EE985CDDFFB3F5522A/U.S.-targets-Russian-'malign-activities'-linked-to-Wagner-Group-in-Central-African-Republic-11-03-2024

EU sanctions: new rules to crack down on violations | News | European Parliament: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240308IPR19002/eu-sanctions-new-rules-to-crack-down-on-violations

Previous episodes:
Season 10, Episode 5: How Mekong region organized crime built a global cryptocurrency money laundering network: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/season-10-episode-5-how-mekong-region-organized-crime/id1548510826?i=1000646371712
Season 9, Episode 8: Hamas, terrorist financing and the U.S. response to the 7 October attack: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/season-9-episode-8-hamas-terrorist-financing-and-the-u/id1548510826?i=1000635015943
Series 9, Episode 3: North Korea, Russia, crypto and changing

Welcome to Compliance Clarified's 100th episode!

This week Rachel Wolcott, senior editor and Lindsey Rogerson, senior editor in London speak to a special
guest Ann Francke Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute in London, a professional body for management and leadership. This International Women's Day podcast looks at the backlash that's hit efforts to get women into the workplace and on an equal footing. We focus on financial services, but this is an issue that reverberates throughout society. In financial services, there has been a backlash against environment, social and governance (ESG) initiatives and despite a lot of talk about diversity and inclusion, such efforts have stalled. Fear of ESG and D&I has been conflated into an anti-woke and in some places, anti-woman agenda and with some politicians and pundits describing measures to tackle climate change and inequality as a societal risk. Equality initiatives are also some of the first to get cut when things get tough.
The Chartered Management Institute, for example, found that one in three male managers (31%) think that too much effort is going into ensuring workplace gender balance. So, how do companies, financial services firms and regulators who want to take D&I or ESG forward stand up to the political and societal backlash?

More on Ann:
She started her career at Procter & Gamble and has held senior executive positions at Mars, Boots, Yell and BSI. In 2020, Ann was awarded an OBE for services to workplace equality. Ann is an expert on gender balance in the workplace and speaks frequently in the media and conferences on this and other management topics. Her book (https://amzn.eu/d/bCRewdP) on gender balance - Create a Gender-balanced Workplace, published in September 2019.

Links to previous International Women's Day podcasts:
2023 Season 7, Episode 7: International Women’s Day special: How to ensure diversity and inclusion initiatives deliver meaningful outcomes - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/season-7-episode-7-international-womens-day-special/id1548510826?i=1000603262524
2022 Season 4, Episode 6: Celebrating International Women's Day -https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/season-4-episode-6-celebrating-international-womens-day/id1548510826?i=1000553278776

Contact us
rachel.wolcott@thomsonreuters.com
lindsey.rogerson@thomsonreuters.com

More information about Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence: https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/regulatory-intelligence


Compliance Clarified is a podcast from Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.
Listen to wide-ranging, insightful discussions on all things compliance for financial services firms. We delve into the hot topics of the day, the challenges faced and offer up practical ideas for emerging good practice. We de-mystify regulation and explore the art, as well as the science, of the ever-expanding role of the compliance officer.  Enforcements, digital transformation, regulatory change, governance, culture, conduct risk – anything and everything impacting the compliance function is up for discussion.

In Episode 6 of Season 10, Helen Parry, senior Regulatory Intelligence Expert speaks to Rachel Wolcott, senior editor about the UK Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) recent success in securing an insider dealing conviction. The FCA's enforcement co-heads—Therese Chambers and Steve Smart --have used this conviction to reassert the regulator's intention to get tough on insider dealing. A previous enforcement head said the same thing in 2015. Rachel asks Helen what is different this time.

Helen explains some of the issues the recent conviction raises about insider dealing list management
and the loopholes those convicted of market abuse or insider dealing think they are taking advantage of
when trading illegally. For example, Mohammed Zina, whom the FCA convicted this month, argued he
was not insider dealing, because he was not on an insider list. That argument did not stand up in court
and Helen offers listeners examples of other similar failed defence arguments. Helen and Rachel talk
through two recent FCA Market Watch newsletters related to market abuse and insider dealing and
touch on some updates to the UK's criminal insider dealing regime.

Links
Helen on the Zina/Goldman case: COLUMN: Ex-Goldman Sachs conflicts resolution group analyst
convicted of insider dealing http://go-ri.tr.com/b4UU6K

Helen on Insider dealing and organised crime:
COLUMN: More connections emerge between criminal insider dealing cases in courts in the UK, US and
France ( January 2020) http://go-ri.tr.com/Oc83Bs

COLUMN: Insider dealing appeal throws more light on international networks of convicted day trader
http://go-ri.tr.com/Q3Sjuh

Rex vs Mohammed Zina sentencing remarks: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/R-
v-Zina.pdf

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM TO THE INSIDER DEALING (SECURITIES AND REGULATED MARKETS)
ORDER 2023 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/582/pdfs/uksiem_20230582_en_001.pdf

Market Watch 76, flying and printing https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/newsletters/market-watch-76

Market Watch 77, insider dealing by organized criminal groups: https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/newsletters/market-watch-77

Compliance Clarified Series 9, Episode 1: UK Financial Conduct Authority's enforcement arm: "all bases
covered"or "highly unsatisfactory"?: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/series-9-episode-1-uk-financial-conduct-authoritys/id1548510826?i=1000629486982

Contact us
Rachel.Wolcot@Thomsonreuters.com
Helen.Parry@thomsonreuters.com

More information about Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/regulatory-intelligence


Compliance Clarified is a podcast from Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.
Listen to wide-ranging, insightful discussions on all things compliance for financial services firms. We delve into the hot topics of the day, the challenges faced and offer up practical ideas for emerging good practice. We de-mystify regulation and explore the art, as well as the science, of the ever-expanding role of the compliance officer.  Enforcements, digital transformation, regulatory change, governance, culture, conduct risk – anything and everything impacting the compliance function is up for discussion.

Industrial scale money laundering originating in Southeast Asia's Mekong region has gone global. It's the infrastructure that handles the proceeds of pig butchering scams, child pornography, trade in human body parts, illegal gambling, drug trafficking and people trafficking. Cross-border crime networks fueled by cryptocurrency is linking the world's most dangerous criminals and allowing them to scale up and automate money laundering. This activity is increasingly linked to terrorist financing as well as sanctions evasion.
In this episode Helen Chan, Regulatory Intelligence expert joins Rachel Wolcott, senior editor to discuss the scale and scope of crypto money-laundering-as-a-service and its origins in Southeast Asia's gambling industry. Helen and Rachel talk listeners through how crypto exchanges may be using regulatory arbitrage to get licensed, which in turn can open the door to organized crime groups. To date China and the U.S. have mounted the strongest regulatory and enforcement response, while other jurisdictions like the UK and the European Union seem to be operating on an outdated assumption that crypto money laundering is low risk.

Links:
UN Office on Drugs and Crime report: Casinos, Money Laundering, Underground Banking and Transnational Organized Crime in East and Southeast Asia: A hidden and accelerating threat: https://www.unodc.org/roseap/uploads/documents/Publications/2024/Casino_Underground_Banking_Report_2024.pdf

ANALYSIS: Highspeed wash: how organized crime's global crypto, gambling networks automated money laundering
Inside paywall: http://go-ri.tr.com/09c1Ja
Outside paywall https://regintel-content.thomsonreuters.com/document/I7F1F59A0CF4811EE95DBBC91F36F90D4

KYC: Firms marketing super-fast customer onboarding vulnerable to account-opening, mule attacks: https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/investigation-fraud-and-risk/kyc-update-customer-on-boarding/

IMPACT ANALYSIS: Fake regulators and VATPs surface on new fraud front in Hong Kong: http://go-ri.tr.com/VYGpP2

COLUMN: China’s crackdown on "pig butchering" invites domestic crypto scrutiny: http://go-ri.tr.com/kRawN7

Reuters report on Alvin Chau, Macao gambling tycoon: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/macau-court-sentences-junket-mogul-18-years-jail-tvb-2023-01-18/

Connecting Chinese and American Scam Victims: https://www.chainargos.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Connecting-Chinese-and-American-Scam-Victims-9-January-2024.pdf

Crypto exchange HTX's Seychelles strike off complicates asset recovery efforts, increases compliance risk for partner firms: http://go-ri.tr.com/htRT2h https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7118129918885961729/

Contact us:
Helen.Chan@thomsonreuters.com
Rachel.wolcott@thomsonreuters.com


Compliance Clarified is a podcast from Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.
Listen to wide-ranging, insightful discussions on all things compliance for financial services firms. We delve into the hot topics of the day, the challenges faced and offer up practical ideas for emerging good practice. We de-mystify regulation and explore the art, as well as the science, of the ever-expanding role of the compliance officer.  Enforcements, digital transformation, regulatory change, governance, culture, conduct risk – anything and everything impacting the compliance function is up for discussion.

Bribery and corruption are set to head the agenda for law enforcers and corporate compliance departments in 2024, with a raft of new statutes and orders making for a particularly demanding environment. The UK's Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, passed in October 2023, is the most important British legal reform on economic crime, fraud, bribery and corruption in more than a century.

In the United States, the Treasury Department in December 2023 outlined plans to target corruption in 2024. To mark International Anti-Corruption Day, Treasury published a fact sheet detailing its plans to tighten the U.S. anti-money-laundering regime. It will also continue providing guidance to help financial institutions detect and report corruption-linked activity.

In this episode, Brett Wolf, U.S. anti-money-laundering reporter for Regulatory Intelligence, and Nick Kochan, a freelance journalist, join Alexander Robson, managing editor, to discuss the legislative agenda and its implications for anti-corruption professionals. They also address the likely direction of the Serious Fraud Office under its new director, as well as upcoming elections in the UK and United States.

Regulatory Intelligence published outlook pieces throughout January, including one on bribery and corruption.

Links
Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act: www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/56/enacted

H.R.4737 - Foreign Extortion Prevention Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4737?s=1&r=29

Behind the Regulatory Intelligence paywall
OUTLOOK 2024-Bribery and corruption high on law enforcement agenda in UK, U.S.: http://go-ri.tr.com/VpZMGs

FACT SHEET: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY ACTIONS TO PREVENT AND DISRUPT CORRUPTION: http://go-ri.tr.com/vPjf5O

Contact us:
alexander.robson@thomsonreuters.com
brett.wolf@thomsonreuters.com
author@kochan.co.uk

https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/regulatory-intelligence


Compliance Clarified is a podcast from Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.
Listen to wide-ranging, insightful discussions on all things compliance for financial services firms. We delve into the hot topics of the day, the challenges faced and offer up practical ideas for emerging good practice. We de-mystify regulation and explore the art, as well as the science, of the ever-expanding role of the compliance officer.  Enforcements, digital transformation, regulatory change, governance, culture, conduct risk – anything and everything impacting the compliance function is up for discussion.