03/23/2020
Visas, travel restrictions and COVID-19
It is important that anyone travelling should monitor the developing situation carefully, and we want to try and help alleviate some of your concern by bringing you regular updates.
Legal, Regulation & Compliance
03/22/2020
Government changes pension rules: What does this mean for NHS staff?
Pension reform has been a cause of concern for doctors for a while now as many in the field claim they were unfairly penalised.
03/22/2020
Norway May Need to Pull Record $13 Billion From Wealth Fund
If Brent crude keeps trading about 30% below Norway’s budget assumption for the year (some analysts expect it could drop further), the government will need to withdraw about 150 billion kroner from its fund.
03/20/2020
BoE cuts rate to record low of 0.1%
The BoE also decided to buy UK government and company debt, increasing its holdings in such bonds by £200bn to £645bn.
03/20/2020
Ashurst advises Glenhawk on new securitisation
The Ashurst team was led by partner Thomas Picton, assisted by senior associates Matthew Pentecost and Louise Young, and associate Barbara Kramarz.
03/20/2020
Dutch banks agree to 6-month freeze on loan repayments for small business
“Interest and principal payments due in April through September will not be collected from these clients; they can make these payments later,” it said.
03/20/2020
EU Exit: European Commission draft legal text for future EU-UK partnership
The COVID-19 crisis led to the cancellation of the negotiating round scheduled this week in London.
03/20/2020
FCA speech on open-ended funds investing in less liquid assets
Speech by Edwin Schooling Latter, Director of Markets and Wholesale Policy, to Investment Association members.
03/20/2020
The Continued Struggle with Anti-Money-Laundering Compliance
Some AML compliance departments function reactively rather than identifying future problems and responding to them preventively or avoiding the problems altogether—with some compliance departments resembling “factories” more than agile,
03/20/2020
Swedbank hit with record $386 million fine over Baltic money-laundering breaches
The investigation also shows that on several occasions, Swedbank has withheld information from the FSA, information that clearly showed how big the problems, in fact, were.
03/20/2020
Corruption And The Coronavirus
How to prevent the abuse of power during a global health pandemic
03/20/2020
COVID-19: FCA sets out expectations for general insurance firms
The FCA has set out expectations for general insurance firms and provided information for consumers about what they should see from their insurance provider during the coronavirus pandemic.
03/20/2020
COVID-19: Postponement of reporting obligations under SFTR and MiFIR
ESMA continues monitoring closely the implementation by the relevant market participants as well as the impact of the relevant measures taken with regards to COVID-19 to ensure alignment of SFT reporting requirements and supervisory practices in the EU.
03/20/2020
In this time of COVID-19, does personal data privacy get thrown out the window?
Business owners in the private sector have become invaluable partners of contact tracing efforts through their conduct of temperature screening
03/20/2020
Deutsche Bank Says Five Ex-Board Members Probed Over Cum-Ex
Report comes after two London bankers convicted in tax scheme
03/20/2020
Management of coronavirus contagion containment in workplaces - Withers
Such has now paved the way to new measures (temperature scanning, self-assessment forms on 14 days’ previous Coronavirus at-risk contacts, dealing with on-premises reported suspicious cases) which have their consequences privacy-wise.
03/20/2020
Bank of England announces supervisory and prudential policy measures to address the challenges of Covid-19
This statement follows the announcement by the Bank of England setting out measures to respond to the economic shock from Covid-19 from its three policy committees on 11 March 2020.
03/20/2020
HMRC warns of 'actively corrupt' tax advisers
Jesse Norman, financial secretary to the Treasury, said many of those who had fallen victim to the additional loan charge had found themselves with "no effective remedy against that bad advice."
03/20/2020
CySEC advises on Business Continuity and Contingency Plans amid COVID-19
CySEC anticipates that Regulated Entities take the necessary steps to prepare for and minimize possible business disruptions by identifying key operations risks.
03/19/2020
Dispute Over Justice Department’s Use of Overseas-Evidence Requests Grows
Those types of foreign requests can give authorities more time to investigate cases, though they may be running up against deadlines for bringing charges.