Semperian, a £1.3bn property fund spun out of Land Securities, has pleaded guilty to an FSA charge of failing to ask for the regulator’s approval when it bought an FSA registered business. The judge at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court yesterday imposed a £1,000 penalty on Semperian PPP Investment Partners, saying the fund had […]

On the 18th February 2010 The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global standard setting body for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). In order to protect the international financial system from ML/FT risks and to encourage greater compliance with the AML/CFT standards, the FATF identified jurisdictions that have strategic deficiencies […]

CEBS publishes high-level principles for risk management – On 16 February 2010, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) published its high level principles for risk management (principles). On 8 April 2009, CEBS announced that it intended to consolidate into a comprehensive guidebook its various existing principles and guidelines addressing risk management issues and that […]

Three Turkish oil company executives fined £116m for market abuse – The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Mehmet Sepil, the chief executive officer of Genel Enerji, a Turkish oil exploration company, £967,005 for dealing in the shares of UK listed Heritage Oil Plc (Heritage) on the basis of inside information. This is the largest […]

TI publishes papers on the Bribery Bill – Transparency International (TI) UK has published a paper entitled “Bribery Bill second reading – TI UK supports the Government’s Bribery Bill as drafted and urges Parliament to enact it before the general election”. The paper sets out TI’s views on the revised Bribery Bill. Read more: http://www.transparency.org.uk/publications

The SFO has announced that managing director and shareholder of Alta Gas Plc, Peter Brian Bradley, has been ordered to pay £1 million compensation to victims following confiscation proceedings on 26 January 2010. In 2001, Alta Gas Plc went into administrative receivership which resulted in the receivers of the company discovering a sophisticated system of […]

The FSA has commenced criminal proceedings against four former directors, Patrick Cryne, Stephen Graham, Timothy Whiston and John Whelan of iSOFT Group Plc for the offence of conspiracy to make misleading statements, contrary to section 397 (1) (a) and (2) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and section 1 of the Criminal Law […]

Laundering in litigation Tuesday 16 February 2010 The provision of legal advice and the conduct of litigation are not covered by the Money Laundering Regulations 2007. The rationale for this exclusion is the protection of a person’s fundamental human right of access to justice. This does not mean, however, that such activities are free from […]