Tweet Wide, Wide Net for Enablers Starting today, parts of the UK’s Finance Bill 2016 came into effect which allows the HMRC to go after so-called “enablers” who help UK tax payers avoid taxes using offshore schemes, services or arrangements, such as bank accounts, investment or broker accounts, trusts, companies, directors / officers or nominees. The amendments […]
Tweet In Canada and the US, lawyers are not subject to anti-money laundering reporting obligations like they are in most other countries. One of the most frequent reasons given for this by lawyers is that to require us to report certain financial transactions to a financial intelligence unit is inconsistent with, and would undermine, legal […]
Tweet The FBI announced today that it has launched a program with resources to target and investigate criminally, lawyers and accountants who help money launderers launder proceeds of crime by providing services to them. There have been lawyers who have been indicted and some convicted who have helped money launderers in a multitude of ways, […]
Tweet The requested deportation of Mahmoud Reza Khavari, a former Iranian foreign national, and a Canadian citizen living in Toronto, seems to be at the centre of the arrest of a Canadian professor from Montreal, Homa Hoodfar, also an Iranian foreign national and equally a Canadian citizen, who was visiting Iran. Professor Hoodfar was arrested […]
Tweet Financial regulators balance innovation and protection Financial regulators serve two important functions for the financial system. 1. They support growth and innovation where it could improve access to finance, or the delivery of financial services or grow the economy. 2. At the same time,  they  protect consumers and society at large by supervising the financial […]
Tweet Panama Papers Driven Changes The US Treasury has announced several amendments, and proposed legislative amendments, to its anti-money laundering (“AML“) legislation in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal to tackle the disclosure of what is called “beneficial ownership.” Beneficial ownership means the beneficial, as opposed to the legal, owner of shares of a […]
Tweet €736 Million Investment in Counter-Terrorism Infrastructure Le gouvernement français a décrété une “mobilisation générale” contre le terrorisme, annonçant la création de 2,680 emplois et le déblocage de €736 millions sur trois ans. Le Premier ministre a présenté des mesures visant à mieux lutter contre les filières suspectes, notamment via internet et dans les prisons, […]
Tweet Kim Rothstein, the so-called “free-spending” wife of Scott Rothstein, was sentenced to 18 months in jail yesterday for plotting to hide over $1 million worth of jewelry to avoid it being seized as proceeds of crime. Mr. Rothstein is a former lawyer incarcerated for running a $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme through the trust accounts […]
Tweet Anti-Tax Evasion Agreement The U.S. Department of Justice and the Swiss Federal Department of Finance have entered into an agreement that essentially ends Swiss bank secrecy and the renown of Switzerland as a tax haven. The Agreement: Applies not just to American taxpayers but also to foreigners and foreign entities who maintain Swiss bank accounts […]
Tweet Tax Evasion Plea Edgar Paltzer, a lawyer called to the bar in Switzerland and the U.S. with the Zurich firm of Niederer, Kraft and Frey, pleaded guilty today in New York to conspiracy to evade taxes and faces up to five years in prison. According to Mr. Paltzer’s indictment, the bank with whom he […]