What Are The Current Sanctions Against Cuba? At the moment, the embargo against Cuba is still in full force. Though it is quite clear that some high-ups in the U.S. Government would like to see that change. In 2010, a bill was re-introduced by Congressman Collin Peterson, which would bar the President from prohibiting travel […]

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says all 29 member countries would respond to a serious cyber-attack on one of them. Writing in Prospect Magazine, he said such an incident would trigger a “collective defence commitment”, known as Article 5 of its founding treaty. Article 5 has not been triggered since the 9/11 terror attacks on […]

When assessing anti-money laundering risk and exposure, global financial institutions should be mindful of the complex landscape and assertions of broad authority by U.S. authorities and banking regulators. U.S. banking regulators, in conjunction with U.S. criminal and civil authorities, have traditionally pursued anti-money laundering and sanctions enforcement cases against multinational banks in relation to conduct […]

Further emphasizing its expectation that all companies whose business touches on the United States should maintain a robust, risk-based US economic sanctions compliance program (“SCP”), the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has published a detailed “Framework for OFAC Compliance Commitments” (the “Framework”) setting forth the key components of an adequate SCP. OFAC’s […]

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission urged a federal judge on Wednesday to appoint a trustee to manage the Woodbridge Group of Companies, a bankrupt property developer the regulator accused of being a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. Woodbridge filed for bankruptcy in December and weeks later the SEC sued to freeze its assets, accusing it […]

A U.S. bank regulator has fined Citibank (C.N) $70 million for failing to address shortcomings in its anti-money laundering policies. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined the bank in late December and announced it on Thursday. The regulator assessed the civil penalty because the bank had failed to address concerns it had […]

A report by the Associated Press (AP) states that Chow Chan Kong from Malaysia, and two Chinese nationals, Gong Biyun and Huang Xiaohong, were convicted of running a brothel and sentenced to jail on Friday. The trio pleaded guilty in July 2017 to conspiring to operate an interstate prostitution ring based in Doraville, Georgia, involving […]

The U.S. Congress began a series of hearings on Tuesday to consider ways to reform money laundering and illicit finance laws applied to casinos, as a president of a payments company argued the current system is broken and driven by perverse incentives. “Our current anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the finance of terrorism (CTF) is […]