All Europe articles – Page 77
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Blog
Broadridge expands analytics capabilities across Europe
Broadridge Financial Solutions this month announced that it has enhanced its corporate governance solution offering in Europe by taking a minority stake and entering into an exclusive distribution and marketing alliance with AMA Partners. AMA is a Netherlands-based firm and provider of DirectorInsight, an analytics platform that offers data and ...
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€30 million for cup of tea? Good work if you can get it
FCPA blogger Tom Fox looks at an unfolding scandal that involves a murdered Mongolian paramour, a contract for submarines, embattled Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razik, middleman Abdul Razak Baginda, and the most lucrative cup of tea in recent memory.
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First British DPA Provides Much to Ponder
It has finally come to pass: the first deferred-prosecution agreement under the U.K. Bribery Act. From the role of judicial oversight (greater than that in the United States) to the final statement of facts (much greater than that in the United States), the settlement with ICBC Standard Bank is full ...
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RBS and StanChart on BoE Stress Tests: Resiliency is key
The Bank of England (BoE) recently released the results of its latest round of stress tests, which involved seven of the biggest U.K. lenders. While some of the banks emerged from the tests relatively unscathed, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered fell below the minimum capital requirements needed to ...
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Regulator Calls on ECB to Tighten Its Rules of Engagement
Image: The European Central Bank’s transparency woes continue as Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly is urging the central bank to build a robust rules of engagement practice by putting a stop to banker meetings ahead of setting policy. O’Reilly said ECB officials should not give investors any advantage over rivals prior to ...
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Should the FCPA Apply to International Sports Agencies?
Image: What’s happening with the intersection of sports and corruption? It seems as if several pillars of the international sporting world have come crashing down in the past few months through corruption scandals. Yet the FCPA usually does not apply in these corruption cases. Why? Tom Fox, our man from ...
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Bankers Still Overpaid Despite Poor Performance
Deutsche Bank Chief Executive John Cryan said earlier this week that bonuses don’t necessarily make bankers work harder; instead some employees feel that they are entitled to an outsized incentive despite bad performance. Cryan’s message come weeks after a warning was issued at Deutsche Bank about rewarding staff with new-year ...
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Tax Evasion Problems at VW “Not Small”
German investigators have launched a new criminal probe into Volkswagen (VW) in light of the automaker’s recent emissions scandal. Prosecutors are examining five suspects who might be involved in this investigation.An Irish Times report said that prosecutors in Braunschweig are now investigating tax evasion allegations at the scandal-ridden German automaker. ...
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Jumping on the VW Amnesty Microbus
Image: Last week Volkswagen offered amnesty to employees who admit any role they played in the emissions-testing scandal currently wracking the company—no doubt drawing upon the success Siemens had when it made a similar offer to employees during a 2006 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation. Opinions differ on the move, ...
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Banks May Get More Time to Prepare for Financial Market Regulation
The EU is considering delaying the release of a comprehensive regulation that will overhaul financial market rules. The delay comes amid mounting concerns that the legislation’s accompanying technologies may not be ready in time for the January 2017 start date. Due to the complexity of the rule, banks and other ...
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U.K. SFO Drops Olympus Probe: Misleading Auditors Not a Crime
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office has dropped a two-year case against Japanese endoscope maker Olympus Corp., in the wake of a London court ruling that doctoring reports to auditors is not a criminal offence under English law. The move is a setback for SFO Director David Green, who has been ...
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FCA’s ‘Regulatory Sandbox’ to Drive Innovation and Competition
Image: The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority is planning to unveil a “regulatory sandbox” for companies to test new products, services, or business models without facing enforcement actions. “To promote competition it is vital that we support firms—both regulated and unregulated, whether large incumbent or small start-ups—that want to bring new ...
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Europe and Petrobras—What Has a Car Wash Wrought?
Image: The scope of the Petrobras corruption scandal is literally worldwide. Now, reports the Financial Times, Rolls Royce has become embroiled in the Brazilian national energy company’s “Operation Car Wash” snafu (dubbed so because the investigation literally started with a car wash), and is currently under investigation by the ...
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U.K. Serious Fraud Office: ‘Why Engage At All?’
At a recent anti-bribery forum in London, Ben Morgan, joint head of bribery and corruption for the Serious Fraud Office, spoke about companies that have been prosecuted and investigated for bribery and corruption. Morgan pointed out that while no legislation is on the horizon to reward whistleblowers financially, ...
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Customers Expected to Stay With Big U.K. Banks Despite the CMA’s Move to Improve Competition
A report by research firm Pinset Masons and YouGov, reveals that 16 percent of customers would likely switch to a “challenger bank” like Metro or TSD within the next two years. These findings come after the British Competition Authority’s recommended the country’s biggest lenders to provide more information around ...
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CW Europe: A View From the U.K. Serious Fraud Office
Image: The general counsel of Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, speaking at the Compliance Week Europe conference in Brussels this week, said the SFO hopes to have several deferred-prosecution agreements in place by the end of this year for companies the agency has been investigating for misconduct. Alun Milford provided no ...
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Britain’s Top Banks Escape Breaking Up; CMA Calls for More Clarity
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has squashed the idea of breaking up some of the country’s largest banks in an effort to improve competition across the industry. After a thorough review, the CMA found that there’s no direct connection between free accounts and competition. Instead, the competition watchdog ...
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U.K. Government Curbs Senior Managers Regime
The U.K’s Finance Ministry is scrapping a key part of the Senior Managers Regime that demanded senior managers prove that they took the necessary steps to prevent employee misconduct. Instead, a new “duty of responsibility” clause will require senior managers to take only the appropriate steps to prevent a regulatory ...
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How Will Schrems Ruling Affect FCPA Compliance in Europe?
Image: The Schrems decision last week invalidated the safe harbor provision that let U.S. companies ferry personal data back and forth from Europe. Already compliance officers are beginning to sweat the implications of that ruling for anti-corruption programs. First likely headache: hotline data. Tom Fox, our Man From FCPA, has ...
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SFO Speeds Up Tesco’s Accounting Probe
The Serious Fraud Office has accelerated its probe into the accounting irregularities at Tesco, hoping to resolve the criminal investigation by year-end. The supermarket chain’s former chief executive Philip Clarke is one of many former Tesco executives being scrutinized by the agency in its investigation; Laurie McIlwee, former finance ...