Day: June 24, 2021

On 24 June, the Jersey Evening Post reported that Princess Camilla de Bourbon des Deux Siciles faces 12 months in prison if she does not pay the fine – imposed for contempt of court – within 3 weeks.  An order for her imprisonment would take effect after 15 July after she lost her appeal against the fine in Jersey’s Court of Appeal.  The court rejected the claim that there is sufficient evidence before the court to make a determination that she is unable to raise £2 million, or to justify an application for payment in instalments.  The fine was imposed in December after it found that the Princess had refused to inform lawyers acting for BNP of the whereabouts of assets held by, or on behalf of, her mother.

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2021/06/24/princesss-attempt-to-overturn-2m-fine-rejected-by-the-court-of-appeal/

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On 24 June, a post on the Compliance and Enforcement blog from the Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement at the New York University School of Law refers to an attached report and says that regulators increasingly rely on whistleblowers for tip-offs.  However, the post says that a concern is that whistleblowers themselves face severe costs to help uncover corporate fraud.  However, there is no large-sample evidence on the consequences for whistleblowers.  The attached report sets out to examine the costs for whistleblowers using information from lawsuits, a professional networking site, and background checks for up to 1,168 whistleblowers.  In particular, the report investigates the career, financial, and social consequences for whistleblowers that filed lawsuits under the US False Claims Act against businesses accused of defrauding the government.  It is said that the  research results indicate that whistleblowers — especially rank-and-file employees — are subject to substantial financial costs; and that these results emphasise the importance of financial compensation for whistleblowers — for example in the form of cash-for-information whistleblower programmes.

https://wp.nyu.edu/compliance_enforcement/2021/06/24/how-costly-is-whistleblowing/

The report is at –

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3837308

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A news release from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement advised that Jorge Juan Torres-Lopez, 67, a former interim governor of Coahuila, Mexico, who pleaded guilty to the charges in June 2020, has been sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for his role in a money laundering scheme that included offences against a foreign nation involving bribery of a public official.  He had worked for the Mexican government from 1994 to 2011. His roles included general director of promotion and development while secretary of finance for the state of Coahuila, municipal president of Saltillo and interim governor of Coahuila.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/former-governor-mexicos-3rd-largest-state-sent-prison-money-laundering-following-ice

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EU Regulation 2021/1030/EU of 24 June imposed new sanctions on Belarus in response to human rights violations in Belarus, including activities relating to the forced diversion of the Ryanair flight in May.  The new measures –

• Prohibit the provision of insurance and re-insurance to the Belarus government and public bodies;
• Prohibit the sale, supply, transfer or export to anyone in Belarus of equipment, technology or software intended primarily for use in the monitoring or interception of the internet and of telephone communications;
• Prohibit the sale, supply, transfer or export to anyone in Belarus of dual-use goods and technologies for military use and to specified persons, entities or bodies in Belarus;
• Restrict access to EU capital markets;
• Imposes restrictions in the trade in petroleum products, potassium chloride, and goods used for the production or manufacturing of tobacco products;
• Requires the European Investment Bank to stop disbursement or payment under existing agreements in relation to projects in the public sector, and any existing Technical Assistance Service Contracts; and
• Requires EU Member States to limit the involvement in Belarus of multilateral development banks of which they are members.

A news release from the EU points out that a total of 166 persons and 15 entities are currently subject to restrictive measures, which comprise an asset freeze applicable to both individuals and entities, and a travel ban on individuals.  There are already in force a ban on the overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and on the access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021R1030&from=EN

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021D1031&from=EN

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021/06/24/eu-imposes-sanctions-on-belarusian-economy/

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Having already looked at China Tobacco’s activities in Europe, on 22 June, Insight Crime published an article says that China Tobacco’s factory (China National Tobacco Corporation, aka CNTC) in Panama was shut down by authorities after its cigarettes kept making their way onto the black market there.  A network of companies sprang up in its place — and have been shipping huge numbers of cigarettes from Panama around the region.  It refers to the Colon Free Trade Zone as “the Disneyland of smuggling”.  It says that reporters have uncovered a Panama-based network of shell companies sending huge amounts of Chinese cigarettes from the free zone into Latin American countries where there is no legal market for them. The companies have ties to China’s massive state-owned tobacco company, and are selling to accused smugglers.

https://www.occrp.org/en/loosetobacco/china-tobacco-goes-global/illegal-chinese-cigarettes-flooding-latin-america-flow-through-panama

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