The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has imposed a financial penalty of £140,000 on Alpari (UK) Ltd (Alpari), an online provider of foreign exchange services for speculative trading, for failing to have in place adequate anti-money laundering systems and controls. Its former money laundering reporting officer (MLRO), Sudipto Chattopadhyay, has also received a financial penalty of […]

May 2010 – In Sutton v Eagle Eye Security CI Ltd (2009) Sutton claimed he was not a “trainee” as described under the Employment (Minimum Wage) (Jersey) Regulations 2004 (the “Regulations”). Accordingly, he claimed that he was entitled to be paid the full minimum wage. The Tribunal directed that, in order to qualify as a […]

On 29 April 2010, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published a report entitled, “Combating Proliferation Financing: A Status Report on Policy Development and Consultation” which is dated February 2010. The paper was prepared for FATF’s working group on terrorist financing and money laundering by its project team on proliferation financing. The paper outlines the […]

On 29 April 2010, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) published issue 85 of Ombudsman News. Items of interest in issue 85 include: Case studies on banking, insurance and investment complaints from consumers living in rural communities. Q&A on the FOS’s new standard forms for payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints which were published in March 2010 […]

On April 9, 2010, the heads of the multilateral development banks — the World Bank and the Regional Development Banks (the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and the Inter-American Development Bank) — signed an agreement to cross-debar firms and individuals found to have engaged in fraud or corruption […]

World Bank and the Regional Development Banks Developments – In addition to the new cross-debarment agreement, there have been other recent changes in the anti-corruption programs conducted by the World Bank and the Regional Development Banks. Contractors need to be aware of the following five: The World Bank and the Regional Development Banks have always […]

Oh, That Money … I Don’t Know, It Just Crawled Into My Hand! – American companies are being bombarded with warnings about the federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and the warnings have become increasingly ominous. In November 2009, the head of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Criminal Division specifically advised pharmaceutical companies that prosecutors […]

FSA bans three individuals and fines a fourth for mortgage fraud and advice failings 30 April 2010 The Financial Services Authority (FSA) today announced it has banned three mortgage brokers from working in regulated financial services; another individual has been fined £17,500.Investigations into each individual by the FSA revealed failings that exposed their firms to […]