by Elina Karpacheva

The Bulgarian FinTech community met to discuss compliance and financial crime for the first time in Sofia. The Spotlight event, organized by Eleven Ventures and the European Compliance Center was truly a success – an evening full of valuable insights and discussions between entrepreneurs and AML/financial crime specialists. The event showed that the thriving innovative ecosystem seriously takes into account the AML/financial crime risks and is committed to building effective internal systems for detection, prevention and response. The event coincided with the launch of the First Bulgarian FinTech report. Bulgaria is the fastest growing Fintech destination in the CEE region according to the newest CEE Fintech Atlas by the Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI).
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by Giacomo Luca Aleo

On June 18, 2019 Facebook announced the birth of its own cryptocurrency: Libra, whose name is inspired by Roman unit of measurement, deriving from balance Latin name; the debut is expected for the first half of 2020. The announcement caused, on one hand, a general uproar and, on the other, the value increase of the other cryptocurrencies. The “Libra Association” (no-profit organization) will manage Libra. It currently counts 28 heterogeneous founding partners (with the goal of reaching 100), representing business giants: from Mastercard and Visa to operators of payment system (PayPal, PayU, Stripe), from telecommunications operators (Vodafone and Iliad) to consumer companies (including Booking, eBay, Spotify, Uber), from venture capital such as Andreessen Horowitz to a global exchange Coinbase. Managing Libra actually means manage the Libra Blockchain: it is a permissioned ledgers model, i.e. the management and the validation of transactions is prerogative of a single node, which – in this case – is collective and represented by the Libra Association. The blockchain will record the entire history of the transactions by replicating them in the node; therefore, the transactions will be transparent to all participants of the Libra Association.
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by Elina Karpacheva

Innovation is surely a good thing. FinTech makes access to finance fast, easy and accessible which is of great benefit to individuals, households and businesses. However, the increased speed of initiating transactions, the borderless movement of money flows, and anonymity may be exploited for ill-gotten gains. FinTech might be used for terrorist financing, money laundering, fraud, tax evasion, market abuse, and overall undermine the stability of financial system. From this angle, FinTech companies have enormous responsibility towards the society to prevent fraudulent behaviour. Governments around the world have started recognising risks associated with technologically enabled financial innovation. In effect, we see the increased level of regulation with enforcement against the FinTech being one of the priorities. The need of FinTech companies to establish compliance expertise to prevent, detect, and response to financial crime has become apparent. 
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The European Commission has launched an infringement procedure by sending a Letter of Formal Notice to Poland regarding the new disciplinary regime for judges. The Polish government has 2 months to reply. The new disciplinary regime undermines the judicial independence of Polish judges by not offering necessary guarantees to protect them from political control, as required by the Court of Justice of the European Union. Firstly, the Commission is of the opinion that Poland failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 19(1) of the Treaty on European Union read in connection with Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which enshrine a right to an effective remedy before an independent and impartial court.
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by Geert Vermeulen

Since my visit to the World Economic Forum in 2018 I have been following the technological developments in IT and the medical sciences with great interest. These two industries have something important in common. The technological developments are progressing at an astonishing pace. Great benefits lie ahead of us. However, these same developments also trigger a whole lot of ethical dilemmas. Organizations struggle with them. They don’t know how to deal with these issues and as a result they ask for more legislation. So, I was thinking: Are new laws really the best answer to these ethical dilemmas? And who would be in a better position to facilitate this debate than the Ethics & Compliance Officers? I am going to let the developments in the medical industry rest for a future occasion and concentrate on the IT developments. In my view, we have recently witnessed a couple really exciting developments in this area, namely the rise of blockchain, data analytics and artificial intelligence.
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Bob Goulooze

In order to create economies of scale, national airline companies are looking for partners. Preferably equal ones but certainly ones that may complement the current services of the flag carrier. In 2004 Air France ‘merged’ with KLM. Since that date troubles began. Air France is the biggest partner in the joint venture with KLM and claimed the lead from day 1. Those who are familiar with the way the French work couldn’t believe in the first place, that this would be a match made in heaven. The French have the patronage system. That is a social inequal relationship between a powerful and less powerful partner. The powerful ‘patron’ renders favors to the subservient one in return for services, adherence, and homage. You don’t have to be culturally savvy to understand that such a patronage relationship is so un-Dutch. At least being at the receiving end. The Dutch have a more ‘equal culture’ in which reaching consensus is the bottom line. Continue reading…

by Daan Lunsingh Scheurleer

On January 29th, 2019, a bill introducing a collective damages action on an opt-out basis for persons domiciled in the Netherlands was adopted by the lower house of Dutch Parliament. The bill will now be submitted to the upper house for approval. If approved, the bill may come in to force and effect on July 1st, 2019 at the earliest. However, this would require a rather swift approval process and January 1st, 2020, seems to be the more likely effective date. Under the current collective litigation regime, no monetary damages can be sought on a collective basis. The essence of the bill is that this restriction will be removed, so that a group action for monetary damages is possible. At the same time, the bar is raised for collective claims in order to achieve a fair and balanced system, which provides a higher level of finality for defendants. Under the new regime, finality is also increased by making a court ruling awarding or denying the collective relief sought binding on the individual members of the group, whereas under the current regime, there is no such binding effect. Continue reading…

Recently we spoke to Evert-Jan Lammers regarding the 2019 Program Forensic Auditing, located in Brussels (in English) developed by a small team of the Institute of Fraud Auditors (IFA) Belgium. The IFA is the National Professional Federation of Fraud Auditors in Belgium. IFA was founded in 2001 as a not for profit association which is based on a public-private partnership. IFA holds a Register of professionals who are certified as “Registered Fraud Auditor”. IFA develops best practices for professionals who are active in the domain of fraud combat in the public and private sector. IFA is hosting these trainings. The Program Forensic Auditing is organized in Brussels, with experienced trainers. Candidates of the Program have to attend 24 workshops in English. After having successfully finished the Program, candidates will receive the title of Registered Fraud Auditor (RFA).

by Vincent Wellens
Since the UK Parliament has rejected the Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and the UK on 15 January 2019, a so-called “no deal” scenario becomes a bit more likely. It goes without saying that this has a tremendous impact on the broadcasting sector as it is one of the sectors to typically benefit from the “country of origin”-principle under EU law. A broadcasting company having an establishment in one EU/EEA Member State can, by virtue of Article 3 of the 2010 EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive (“AVMSD”), freely broadcast into all other EU/EEA Member States. The latter can only intervene in very exceptional circumstances (in case of a serious risk for public health and public security).
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by Melvyn Morrison
Our recent Risk Congress at the prestigious Plaza Theatre in Brussels, dedicated to the theme of ‘Countering Economic Crime towards 2023’, was the venue for expert opinions from a number of eminent speakers, including Michaël André, the Head of Enforcement at the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) in Belgium. The FSMA is an autonomous public institution that, together with the National Bank of Belgium (NBB), supervises the Belgian financial sector. For example, Michaël is responsible for the day-to-day and strategic management of the Enforcement department, and for spearheading the investigation process giving rise to possible sanctions (for all areas of supervision).
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