Simmons & Simmons on 7 July released a webinar which explores the implications of the scandal, providing insight into the position from both a German and international perspective. The slides are also available to download.
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An article from Simmons & Simmons on 8 July set out to track the effectiveness of these UK powers in seizing the proceeds of crime and their uptake by law enforcement. It notes the increased use Asset Freezing and Forfeiture Orders (AFFO), but notes that this brings with it some cause for concern, which the article lists.
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The Small Arms Survey organisation has provided a new resource which provides an overview of such techniques with a view to aid stakeholders strengthen their implementation and enforcement of the sanctions regime, with a set of 3 how-to guides focusing on:
They are in Arabic, English, and French and aim to support the UN sanctions regime on North Korea by helping practitioners, stakeholders, and other subject matter experts identify evasion trends and practical risk assessment techniques.
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/about-us/highlights/2020/highlight-saenk-guides.html
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/Q-Handbooks/SAENK-Guides/SAENK-Guides-ENG.pdf
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On 11 July, the Romania Journal reported that Alina Bica, the former head of the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) has been detained in Italy after being on the run in the past 2 years. She was sentenced to 4 years in prison for corruption, but fled the country in early 2018. She was caught in Italy, along with another fugitive defendant, businessman Ioan Bene.
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On 6 July, the Tax Justice Network announced that it, in cooperation with the CORPNET group at the University of Amsterdam and the Data Analytics and Society Centre for Doctoral Training at the University of Sheffield has mined and applied advanced analytics to Orbis data to identify patterns and red flags on the ownership chains of UK companies. It says that the findings include that –
These findings, it says, were consistent with what the OECD Global Forum peer review report in 2018. However, it says, 2 UK companies of its sample had 23 layers of intermediary entities up to a natural person shareholder.
It makes the sensible proposal that, to be able to detect anomalies and possible problems, it is necessary to know what a typical company looks like. For example, do most companies have 1, 2 or 10 shareholders? How are shareholdings allocated among shareholders, equal distribution (50-50 split, 33-33-33 split or 99-1 split)? How many layers are present in the ownership chain? Therefore, TJN produced an analysis of UK companies’ legal ownership chains, but Companies House’s legal ownership data was not sufficient for the purposes of the analysis.
The article mentions the various issues the survey encountered, saying that the lack of verification and enforcement on beneficial ownership data, allows companies to declare an entity, instead of a natural person, as a beneficial owner. It also says that the lack of open data format for companies’ legal ownership information, makes it very hard to track the ownership chain of companies.
The next part of this project will include an analysis of the country of incorporation of most layers of UK terminal companies.
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On 11 July, the Irish independent reported that retired businessman Ted Cunningham, 72, the only man convicted in connection with the Northern Bank robbery is now suing the bank for taking possession of millions of pounds sterling found by gardaí at his home. He has issued High Court proceedings seeking damages for conversion, saying that the cash was seized by gardaí under legislation found to have been unconstitutional. In 2004, raiders took £26 million from the Northern Bank in Belfast, taking it from the vaults at the bank’s headquarters, quietly loading it into crates inside a white lorry and driving away into the night.
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On 10 July, Imperial Valley News carried a DoJ news release advising that a criminal complaint had been unsealed in federal court in New York, charging Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares (Luis Martinelli Linares) and Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares (Ricardo Martinelli Linares) for their roles in a massive bribery and money laundering scheme involving Odebrecht SA, the Brazil-based global construction conglomerate. It is said that the Odebrecht scheme involved the payment of more than $700 million in bribes to government officials, public servants, political parties, and others in Panama and other countries around the world to obtain and retain business for the company.
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