The Securities and Exchange Commission charged New York-based broker-dealer AOC Securities LLC, and its former chief executive officer, Ronaldo Gonzalez, with failing to supervise an AOC broker who provided inflated price quotes for certain securities to a significant customer of AOC. According to the SEC’s orders, Frank Dinucci Jr., a broker at AOC, provided inflated price quotes to a New York-based investment adviser, Premium Point Investments LP. 

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Following a request for assistance from Greece, rescEU assets have been mobilised to tackle forest fires ravaging several areas of Greece. As an immediate response, the European Union has already helped to mobilise 3 forest fighting planes from rescEU reserve from Italy and Spain to be dispatched swiftly to the affected regions. RescEU is the EU’s strengthened EU Civil Protection Mechanism, whose reserve includes firefighting planes and helicopters. Through rescEU, the EU reinforces its collective ability to respond to disasters that affect European countries. This is the first ever deployment of the rescEU assets.

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Following contested proceedings, the Upper Tribunal has found that Andrew Tinney, the former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Barclays Wealth and Investment Management (Barclays Wealth), breached his obligation as an approved person to act with integrity.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against a Brooklyn individual and two entities under his control who allegedly engaged in a fraudulent scheme to sell digital securities to investors and to manipulate the market for those securities.  The court entered an emergency freeze to preserve at least $8 million of the $14.8 million the defendants raised in 2017 and 2018 in an offering of digital securities.
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The European Banking Authority (EBA) published clarifications to a fifth set of issues that had been raised by participants of its Working Group (WG) on APIs under PSD2. The clarifications respond to issues raised on the measurement of response times of the dedicated interface, the machine-readability of the EBA register, reliance on eIDAS certificates and various issues related to the contingency measures, including the identification of third party providers through ‘guest books’, the data that can be accessed and documentation.

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The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is consulting on a new framework code of practice for the use of personal data in political campaigning. The framework code will serve both as helpful guidance in its own right as well as having the potential to become a statutory code of practice if the relevant legislation is introduced. The framework code does not introduce new requirements for campaigners but seeks to explain and clarify data protection and electronic marketing laws as they already stand. It also seeks to provide practical guidance and useful examples on ways campaigners could comply with their obligations whilst carrying out common political campaigning activities.

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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 Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and The Pensions Regulator (TPR) are joining forces again this summer to warn the public about fraudsters targeting people’s retirement savings. This warning comes as new research suggests that 42% of pension savers, which would equate over 5 million people across the UK, could be at risk of falling for at least one of six common tactics used by pension scammers.
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Malaysia filed criminal charges against Richard Gnobbe, a top executive at Goldman Sachs and 16 other former and current Goldman Sachs bankers. The charges escalate the legal challenges for Goldman, which has come under scrutiny for its role in a multibillion-dollar international fraud scandal that led to the ouster of Najib Razak as Malaysia’s prime minister.

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The European Central Bank (ECB) will undertake a comprehensive assessment of five Croatian banks. This exercise, which will comprise an asset quality review (AQR) and a stress test, follows Croatia’s submission of a request in May 2019 seeking to establish close cooperation between the ECB and Hrvatska narodna banka. A comprehensive assessment is required as part of the process of establishing close cooperation between the ECB and the national competent authority of an EU Member State whose currency is not the euro.
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