Winter 2020

Corruption, procurement and self-cleaning in Denmark | Kammeradvokaten/Poul Schmith

In 2015 Denmark’s image as one of the world’s least corrupt nations came under scrutiny as Atea A/S, the Danish subsidiary of the Norwegian IT supplier Atea ASA, came under investigation for bribing several public officials employed in IT departments of various Danish public authorities, including the national police and the regional authority, Region Zealand. …

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Significant matters – Winter 2020

National Grid drops three from panel BDB Pitmans, Irwin Mitchell and Norton Rose Fulbright have been dropped from National Grid’s panel, understood to be worth about £12m a year in the UK. Womble Bond Dickinson is the sole new appointee on a roster that reduced the number of advisers from 12 to ten. Addleshaw Goddard, …

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The ultimate beneficial owner – the Achilles heel of money laundering? | Mareș & Mareș

Money laundering represents one of the key challenges in the fight against serious crime, especially considering its stealth nature as well as its cross-border dimension. There is an underlying link between money laundering and other crimes, such as corruption offences, human trafficking, drug trafficking or the financing of terrorism. One of the most significant and …

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Heather Mitchell – The Carlyle Group

‘One reason I’m doing this interview is so I can send it to my parents. They’re really important to me. Ah, suddenly, the hard-woman persona crumbles,’ jokes Heather Mitchell, global general counsel (GC) for investments and head of EMEA at The Carlyle Group.

Straight talk: criminal defence and compliance in AML cases | PARK Wirtschaftsstrafrecht White-collar crime

Quotes: ‘Money laundering is for drug dealers and terrorists. We do not have any exposure’; ‘We have never checked against AML lists. Competitors don’t do it. Why would we?’; ‘Lawyers just don’t understand business. That’s just scare tactics’; ‘Yeah, we do have compliance. They don’t generate any revenue’; ‘We here in compliance can preach. But …

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The BT interview – ideas from the bath

The In-House Lawyer (IHL): Eighteen months in the group general counsel role, what have been some of the key projects you’ve been doing since you landed? The wider business has been through a lot of transformation, how is legal keeping up? Sabine Chalmers (SC), group GC, BT: When I joined Gavin Patterson was my boss. …

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Greece’s new breach of trust offence: key issues for boards | Ioannis Giannidis Law Firm

‘Breach of trust’, an equivalent to ‘Untreue’, ‘abus de confiance‘ or ‘abuse of position’, is a typical white-collar crime in Greece and the main source of criminal liability risk for the boards of directors (BoDs), CEOs and other officers holding a position of trust within a corporation. Hence, the recent amendments to the actus reus …

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The greater good

Matthew Scully, Clifford Chance: There are two things that I wanted to touch on: first, whether there is such a thing as a good culture – I would say there is no one good corporate culture for all businesses but there are perhaps some basic common features – and, second, the notion of ‘tone from …

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US anti-corruption developments – 2019 in review | Diaz, Reus & Targ

Throughout 2019, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continued to actively investigate and prosecute individuals and corporations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for suspected involvement with political corruption and/or bribery around the world. The US implemented further aggressive measures to fight corruption, including economic sanctions administered …

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A different mindset

Alex Novarese, The In-House Lawyer: It has been a record period for Asian activity into Europe. How do you see the general trends? Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, Hinduja Group: China is an issue, because the main difference between the Asian companies, European companies and Chinese companies is that Chinese companies are directly or indirectly state-owned. The second …

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The justified limitation of associations’ powers in the fight against corruption | Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier

In France, the fight against the great scourges that are corruption, misappropriation of public funds and more generally white-collar crime has led to the emergence of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), constituted in the form of associations, who play the role of public accusers, a role traditionally held by the state prosecutor but without being subject to …

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When the tide goes out

There is a long-established truism among white-collar crime lawyers that when a country goes into a recession, financial crime rises to the surface. And with various reports suggesting Brexit uncertainty and low business confidence could tip the UK economy into a downturn, those specialists are predicting more work will hit desks soon.