Publication
Government Investigations in Singapore 2025
We have contributed the Singapore chapter of Getting the Deal Through, Government Investigations 2025.
Australia | Publication | 6 November 2019
Anti-money laundering (AML) risk is fast evolving into one of the key risks any business has to manage. If companies get their AML risk management wrong, it can mean major reputational damage and massive value destruction for investors. After all, no one wants to be seen as an accessory to criminality.
In AML and counter-terrorism financing, things are accelerating in Australia and around the globe and boards and managers need to move quickly up the curve in dealing with this risk.
A couple of recent trends are highlighting AML as a key risk to mitigate:
(1) Heightened Enforcement
(2) Regulatory Change
The Global Financial Action Task Force is currently reviewing Australia’s AML framework. And the Parliament is considering a new Bill to amend Australian AML legislation.
The Bill contains a range of overdue measures that seriously strengthen Corporate Australia’s capability to fight money laundering, bringing it closer to the standard of other developed economies:
The Bill, if passed, will not provide a silver bullet for regulated entities. Regulated entities must continually assess their legal, regulatory and reputational risk arising from financial crime, and then deal with those risks (echoes of Hayne).
And they will need to get across the Bill’s implications for their business.
Building a Culture of Compliance
Updating your Risk Assessment
Review your Risk Assessment regularly. You need to determine the impact of the changes to the AML landscape and legislation. Make this an agenda item for the Board or at the very least your Risk Committee.
Go back to first principles when you make changes to your systems, policies and processes. Failing to ask the “why” can mean that risks are misunderstood leading to possible money laundering exposure.
Aligning Technology
Implementing and adapting technology solutions is essential for managing AML risk. Your AML related technology has to keep up with your business and how bad actors are exploiting control weakness.
One of the causes of recent examples of non-compliance was an integration failure between IT systems and ineffective communication between the risk owner and those responsible for technology.
With the challenging AML landscape, boards and senior management should obtain independent advice to assist them discharging their AML obligations and particularly when instances of AML non-compliance occur.
How those instances are managed could be critical to customer retention and, even, business continuation.
Publication
We have contributed the Singapore chapter of Getting the Deal Through, Government Investigations 2025.
Publication
The private credit market and direct lending have grown and diversified immensely in the past decade, offering alternative sources and terms of debt compared to those historically provided by the syndicated leveraged loan and public issuance markets. Consequently, they are fast becoming pivotal components in the capital ecosystem, so much so that the Bank of England consider that the private credit market is currently responsible for approximately $1.8 trillion of debt issuance, which is four times its size in 2015. This growth has been particularly pronounced in Europe and the US but there has also been significant activity in Asia.
Publication
The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Regulation, commonly referred to as the AI Act, is expected to come into force during the summer of 2024 (the AI Act). The AI Act will be the first comprehensive legal framework for the use and development of artificial intelligence (AI), and is intended to ensure that AI systems developed and used in the EU are safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly.
Subscribe and stay up to date with the latest legal news, information and events . . .
© Norton Rose Fulbright LLP 2023