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 part three. Continue reading…

The Digital Currency Institute (DCI) of the People’s Bank of China (PBC) and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) have joined a central bank digital currency project for cross-border foreign currency payments. The m-CBDC Bridge initiative is run in partnership with the BIS Innovation Hub (BISIH), the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Bank of Thailand (BoT). It will further explore the capabilities of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) by developing a proof-of-concept (PoC) prototype to support real-time cross-border foreign exchange payment-versus-payment transactions in multiple jurisdictions, operating 24/7. It will analyse business use cases in a cross-border context with both domestic and foreign currencies. Continue reading…

On 17 December 2020, EIOPA published its “Opinion on the 2020 review of Solvency II” together with an extensive Background analysis. In its Opinion, EIOPA formulates proposals to amend the L1 Solvency II framework directive (SII FD) as well as the L2 Solvency II Delegated Regulation. However, EIOPA also opines that certain clarifications can be given, not only via amending the SII FD or the Delegated Regulation, but also through additional guidance or the issuance of new EIOPA guidelines. In the meantime, the Commission and other stakeholders are reading and analysing EIOPA’s Opinion. I decided in this blog to focus on EIOPA’s suggested use of guidelines in the review. 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 part two. Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker

We recently had an opportunity to speak together with Nick Palmer who is the Head of Global Business at Group-IB. Group-IB is an international provider of solutions aimed at investigating high-tech crime, detecting and preventing cyberattacks, online fraud, and intellectual property theft. Nick Palmer was also a moderator of Group-IB’s CyberCrimeCon online event held last year in November. Our discussion covered several areas of interest relating to Group-IB’s operations, its recent opening of its European headquarters in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, how organisations in general can safeguard against cyberattacks and what the main risks for organisations are today.
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The Netherlands remains ranked as the world’s 13th most valuable brand nation. The country’s brand value is down by 21% to US$945 billion. The top 100 nation brands based in the Brand Finance Nation Brands 2020 ranking lost US$13.1 trillion of brand value last year as they were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, China’s brand value stands at US$18.8 trillion. It continues to close in on the US, which has a brand value of US$23.7 trillion. Japan was ranked 3rd in the world as its economy recovered quickly and remained largely intact from the pandemic. Ireland has been the only nation brand in the top 20 to see brand value growth of up to 11% at US$670 billion due to its robust economy bolstered by strong exports and consumer spending. Vietnam, which has been emerging at the Southeast Asian center for manufacturing, has outranked the global trend with a brand value up 29%. Continue reading…

With the support of Eurojust, the Dutch fiscal authorities have halted a major scam to avoid the payment of VAT via trading companies. By setting up a string of enterprises in the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland and Croatia, a network of traders in Secure Digital (SD) memory cards for mobile phones allegedly defrauded the Dutch fiscal authorities for an estimated amount of EUR 9 million between 2017 and 2020. During an action day supported by Eurojust, 13 places have been searched and communications equipment, documents and digital evidence was seized. 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 part one in a series of five articles on the event.
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The disruption created by technological progress in the market for financial services arises from (i) an expanded set of services offered to consumers; (ii) the processes and distributional channels followed by firms in offering those services; and (iii) the arrival of new (technological) suppliers of those services. These developments are bound to generate profound changes in the market structure, as non-bank fintech players are now becoming very active in offering services that in the past were predominantly offered by banks. Their presence in the payment service area is already quite significant. However, they are also gaining weight in the provision of wealth management services, the sale of insurance products and loan underwriting. Those services are increasingly being provided within established technology platforms run by large companies (big techs), where a variety of financial and non-financial products are offered by a plurality of suppliers that may or may not be linked to the platform owner. A growing number of products and players increases supply, lowers the cost of financial services and encourages financial inclusion. However, it may also generate risks for the stability and adequate functioning of the financial system. Continue reading…

With environmental crime expanding rapidly on a global scale, Eurojust has presented a new report on its casework in this field. The report summarises experiences encountered in the cross-border criminal cases referred to the Agency between 2014 and 2018 and provides a concise overview of legal and operational challenges. The Report on Eurojust’s Casework on Environmental Crime highlights best practice which should help national authorities overcome these challenges and recommends ways to develop effective cooperation within the European Union and with partner countries. According to an Interpol and United Nations Environment Programme, environmental crime is the fourth-largest criminal activity in the world, growing at a rate of between 5 % and 7 % per year. It endangers not only habitats and populations of wildlife but also entire ecosystems and living environments. Major environmental offences can generate very high profits and carry a relatively low risk of detection. Often, they’re committed by organised crime groups (OCGs) that operate across the EU’s internal and external borders. Continue reading…