On 30 April, the EU Sanctions blog reported that a federal court in the US has moved to dismiss a claim brought under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act against Teck Resources, Canada’s second largest mining company, by the former owner of a Cuban mining company, former owners of assets latterly used by Teck.
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On 29 April, Irish law firm Matheson published an article saying that the first Irish cross-government plan on implementing reforms to tackle economic crime and corruption was published by the Department of Justice on 19 April. The Action Plans sets an ambitious deadline of 18 months for 22 actions to achieve wide-ranging reform to be completed across government, underlining the priority and commitment afforded by government to achieving results in this area. The Action Plan follows hot on the heels of the publication of the Hamilton Report of December.
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AUSTRAC has released this Guidance says that SMR with incomplete, inaccurate or unstructured descriptions and summaries can make further meaningful analysis difficult and lessen the SMR’s overall usefulness. This document provides guidance to assist reporting entities in submitting more effective SMR, thus helping AUSTRAC to generate more actionable intelligence for police and other partner agencies. The better the quality, accuracy and timeliness of an SMR, the greater the value they have for the detection, deterrence and disruption of criminal and terrorist activity.
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EU Regulation 2021/707/EU deleted the entry for Bureau d’achat de diamant en Centrafrique/Kardiam, following the decision of the relevant UN Sanctions Committee on 5 April.
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On 30 April, HM Treasury issued a Notice advising that the existing entries for Abd Al-Rahman AL-MILAD and Mohammed Muammar QADHAFI had been amended, although both remained designated. This followed an announcement from UN on 29 April.
https://www.un.org/press/en/2021/sc14509.doc.htm
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ACAMS has published the results of this survey undertaken with RUSI. A year after the release of the FATF Guidance on Digital ID and after the Coronavirus pandemic placed a renewed emphasis on its importance, the survey takes stock of how this technology is perceived and the promise it holds for combating financial crime in the future. 82% of respondents were at least familiar with the concept of Digital ID and what it can be used for and 86% of respondents view Digital ID as a positive innovation. Respondents overwhelmingly said they would trust government issued Digital IDs, with 87% of respondents saying they would do so.
https://www.acams.org/en/media/document/18401
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On 29 April, following the release of the mutual evaluation report on New Zealand, FATF published an updated consolidated schedule of all assessment results to date.
http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/4th-Round-Ratings.pdf
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On 29 April, OFAC announced that it had agreed a settlement with MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc, the global payments company based in Dallas, Texas. MoneyGram agreed to remit $34,328.78 to settle its potential civil liability for 359 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programmes. it provided services to blocked individuals incarcerated in US federal prisons without a licence from OFAC, processed transactions on behalf of an additional blocked person, and processed transactions for individuals who initiated commercial transactions involving Syria. OFAC says that MoneyGram’s apparent violations were voluntarily self-disclosed and were non-egregious.
A separate agreement with SAP SE, a software company located in Walldorf, Germany, which has agreed to settle its potential civil liability for 190 apparent violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations. SAP engaged in the export, re-export, sale, or supply of technology or services from the US to companies in third countries with knowledge or reason to know the software or services were intended specifically for Iran, and sold cloud-based software subscription services accessed remotely through SAP’s cloud businesses in the US to customers that made the services available to their employees in Iran. This agreement followed a self-disclosure by SAP.
https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/20210429_moneygram.pdf
https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/20210429_sap.pdf
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On 26 April, RUSI announced that it has launched a freely available online risk assessment tool that helps private-sector companies ensure they do not unwittingly facilitate crime when operating in free-trade zones (FTZ). There has been a growing level of concern about the abuse of FTZ for illicit trade, money laundering and tax evasion. Despite global advances like the publication of the OECD Code of Conduct for Clean FTZ, businesses often find it difficult to distinguish between low-risk and high-risk FTZ.
https://rusi.org/rusi-news/rusi-develops-free-trade-zone-risk-assessment-tool
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On 29 April, a Notice from HM Treasury advised that, following the enactment of the new Regulations below, 23 sanctioned entities have had their listing amended.
UK: MYANMAR (SANCTIONS) REGULATIONS 2021
On 29 April, the UK published these Regulations which revoke 2019 regulations, are made under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 to establish a sanctions regime in relation to Myanmar for the purposes of: promoting the peace, stability and security of Myanmar; promoting respect for democracy, the rule of law and good governance in Myanmar; discouraging actions, policies or activities which repress the civilian population in Myanmar; and promoting compliance with international human rights law and respect for human rights in Myanmar.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/496/contents/made
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