Day: February 14, 2022

On 14 February, HM Treasury announced further amendments to various entries on its sanctions list – 68 entries have been amended in the new version of the consolidated list and 1 entry has been amended in the new and previous versions of the consolidated list. Amendments have been made to entries under the Syria, Russia and Zimbabwe financial sanctions regimes, and the relevant notices can be found on the respective regime pages.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-sanctions-consolidated-list-of-targets

On 8 February, an article from Mongabay is concerned with Union Development Group (UDG), a Chinese company that was granted a 36,000-hectare concession in Cambodia’s Botum Sakor National Park in 2008, followed by an additional 9,100-hectare concession granted in 2011.  It says that much of Botum Sakor National Park’s forests have been cleared by UDG and other companies.  UDG is subject to US sanctions, and it is said that UDG had enlisted the support of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces to evict and harass residents, and also managed to skirt the 10,000-hectare limit on land concessions by “falsely registering as a Cambodian-owned entity”.

https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/how-a-dirty-gambling-company-may-have-set-the-standard-for-destruction-in-cambodia/

On 10 February, an article from Arthur Cox LLP reported on new regulations that pave the way for the establishment of a central database of payment accounts, bank accounts and safe-deposit boxes held with credit institutions (banks, and Class 1 investment firms) in Ireland.  This is required by the EU 4^th AML Directive (although the target was a requirement to do so by September 2020).

https://insights.arthurcox.com/post/102hihe/aml-update-central-database-of-bank-accounts-payment-accounts-and-safe-deposit

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