This really is a story about money laundering. Stay with us: first, it's not at all a done deal that whatever happens in Brexit, UK lawyers will lose out for any reason except sentiment. Yes, long term, international recognition may be more complex but that could well turn out to be to the advantage of English (specifically, but perhaps one or two South Wales firms might be included) lawyers as their gene pool becomes less diluted. But everyone acknowledges that there should be some kind of hedge against that risk and so large firms are putting in place measures to be, in effect, dual citizens (not legally accurate, of course). Now Theresa May, in need of a win, has done something that will both assist UK lawyers and really, really get up the nose of those Eurocrats who are trying to frustrate the will of the UK people. And there's a not-to-well hidden benefit for British businesses outside the legal sector, too.
Dealing with your company is an excruciatingly difficult and time wasting experience.
Here are ten (actually, it's eleven and that's because I stopped writing) reasons why no one should buy anything from Harvey Norman in Malaysia, starting with examples of how your terms and conditions are outrageously onerous on customers and moving on to how failures are dealt with at the customer's expense if at all.
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has announced that in an agreed settlement before the Federal Court, Australian financial services group Westpac will pay a civil penalty of AUD35 million after admitting breaches of Australia's responsible lending rules. The door-of-the-court settlement avoids a lengthy trial that should have started yesterday.
Janus was a Roman god: the one with two faces. California's Attorney General Xavier Becerra has those traits: on the one hand, he's all about consumer rights, the rights of the under-privileged including immigrants but on the other he's in favour of allowing unions to compel non-members to hand over part of their wages. The idea that oppression is oppression is oppression seems to have passed him by and it's a case called Janus v AFSCME, Council 31 and others that has compelled him to nail his colours to the mast. Government bad, socialist bullies good. His defiance of Federal law is well recognised but this is a case where all the...
In 2010, in the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, Jenson Button's McLaren Mercedes did not have the pace of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari. At his best, with a car that is good enough, Button was one of F1's fastest drivers and he proved it with a pole position that took everyone, including his team-mate Hamilton, by surprise. His only chance for victory in the race was to get in front before the first corner and hold position for the entire race, knowing that he would be under constant pressure from the Ferraris in particular....
The US courts are busy with state Attorneys General challenging US President Trump in many ways. Deleting the hyperbole, fixing the reversal of terminology and expunging the adjectives that turn so many of the important statements made by e.g. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra into tabloid-style and undermines their credibility, we've picked out the salient points of one of the most important challenges: 20 Attorneys General have obtained an interim injunction to block the Trump administration's decision that it's OK to publish the blueprints for the making of a working gun using a 3D printer.
Australia's ASIC has undertaken an extensive review of so-called "reverse mortgages" which are actual mortgages with potentially catastrophic long-tail results, which may be one of the things that borrowers did not understand. The findings of the review are startling.
A doctor prescribed meds his patients didn't need, claimed payment and spent the proceeds. Now he's serving a 12 year jail sentence for, amongst other things, laundering the proceeds of his own offence.
The owner of an interior design company denied the right of the US government to charge income tax on his earnings. So he set about an elaborate scheme to evade taxes. He's been convicted and is due to be sentenced in November 2018. His schemes were both daring and extensive but the tax evaded over that period was a relatively small amount.
A very suspicious e-mail spoofing email addresses of not one but two banks and appearing to link to a website appearing to relate to an embassy has been received at the offices of The Anti Money Laundering Network. The hook is information on OFAC blacklists. The mail is in HTML format and therefore disguises the destination of links and also enables the placing of in-line graphics. We place regulators, enforcement agencies and those in financial institutions, especially in compliance and risk management, on alert.
In the dying days of the parliament dominated by Malaysia's now disgraced prime minister Najib Razak and those close to him the government passed its Anti-Fake News Act 2018. Its stated aims were sensible but in a country where the government had regularly arrested and held without trial those who expressed opinions contrary to those of or critical of the government and the ruling United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), its true purpose was widely regarded as a tool to further suppress legitimate dissent. Its repeal was an election promise that has been kept.
In August 2018, two men were convicted of fraudulent dealings in the assets of a company with the intent to transfer them to a new company so as to continue in business after the old company went into liquidation.
So, it's simple: you attach an electronic signature to an electronic document and off it wings by e-mail. Job done, right? Apparently "some businesses are still unsure if electronic signatures would satisfy legal requirements," says The Law Commission. But instead of just saying "of course, in the absence of fraud or some other frustrating or negating matter, that's a validly executed document" the Law Commission has produced "proposals." So, not simple at all, then.
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