All the major financial centres have experienced a rise in anti-money laundering rules and regulations. Initially, anti-money laundering laws were used as a weapon in the war on drugs, whilst more recently they have been deployed in the ongoing fight against terrorism. These developments, the authors reveal, have had serious consequences for banks and other financial institutions - affecting not only profit margins but also the way in which business is conducted. Topical and pertinent issues addressed in this book include questions such as, has all the recent legislative activity really put a stop to the problem? Are the international rules being implemented as carefully as they should? How level is the playing field in cross border banking? The regimes and implementation of anti-money laundering laws and regulations of four major, cross border, financial centres are also examined in depth: Switzerland, Singapore, the UK, and the USA. Going beyond the purely descriptive, there are comparative analyses of these countries against existing international standards - with illuminating results. This new book is full of original insight and analysis and will be an invaluable resource for lawyers, both scholarly and practitioner based, with an interest in economic crime as well as policymakers and compliance officers within banks and other financial institutions.

With industrialization and globalization, corporations acquired the capacity to influence social life for good or for ill. Yet, corporations are not traditional objects of criminal law. Justified by notions of personal moral guilt, criminal norms have been judged inapplicable to fictional persons, who 'think' and 'act' through human beings. The expansion of new corporate criminal liability (CCL) laws since the mid-1990s challenges this assumption. Our volume surveys current practice on CCL in 15 civil and common law jurisdictions, exploring the legal conditions for liability, the principles and options for sanctioning, and the procedures for investigating, charging and trying corporate offenders. It considers whether municipal CCL laws are converging around the notion of 'corporate culture', and, in any case, the implications of CCL for those charged with keeping corporations, and other legal entities, out of trouble.

In declaring the war against terrorism President George W. Bush also declared war on the financing of terrorism. The call to arms has been complemented by a concerted effort world-wide to track down and freeze the assets of suspected terrorists and financial institutions have risen to these challenges over the last year contributing their expertise gathered mostly through techniques to combat money laundering. In this book bankers, regulators and academics pose a variety of questions from their individual perspectives: To what extent are new laws really new? What can financial institutions realistically contribute to the suppression of terrorist financing? Can individual rights be protected in these circumstances? These questions are analysed by experts who come up with some thought provoking answers.

Terrorists need money to commit acts of violence and sustain their operations. Measures to combat terrorism therefore aim to prevent terrorists from raising, moving and using funds or other assets. The effectiveness - and the fairness - of these measures were considered at the second 'Giessbach' seminar on counter-terrorist financing (CTF) organised by the Basel Institute on Governance in October 2008. This book contains essays presented at the seminar written by practitioners and academics with extensive experience in the field of CTF. The authors offer a diversity of views on the domestic, regional and international initiatives aimed at detecting terrorist funds in the financial system, preventing terrorists from moving their money via alternative financial channels and facilitating the recovery of terrorist assets. The editors conclude with in-sights into the ongoing challenge of making CTF measures both effective and legally sustainable in the lead-up to Giessbach III in December 2009.

Corruption undermines nearly all key legal and developmental priorities today, including the effective functioning of democratic institutions and honest elections; environmental protection; human rights and human security; international development programs; and fair competition for global trade and investment. This book chronicles the global anticorruption steps taken since the movement advanced after the end of the Cold War. It provides a realistic assessment of the present state of affairs by critically evaluating what existing anticorruption programs and treaties have accomplished and documenting their shortcomings, while developing an action agenda for the next decade. The authors argue that reformative action is imperative, and the forces of globalization and digital communication will level the playing field and erode the secrecy corruption requires. They define corruption, document its effects, discuss the initiatives that changed public perception, analyze the lessons learned, and then evaluate how to move forward with existing initiatives charting a new path with new, differentiated strategies.

The OECD Convention on Bribery established an international standard for compliance with anti-corruption rules, and has subsequently been adopted by the thirty-four OECD members and six non-member countries. As a result of the Convention and national implementation laws, companies and managers now risk tough sanctions if they are caught bribing foreign officials. The UK Bribery Act 2010 is only one example of this development. The second edition of this, the only commentary on the Convention, provides law practitioners, company lawyers and academic researchers with comprehensive guidance on the OECD standards. It includes case examples as well as the FCPA Resource Guide 2012 and the 2009 OECD Recommendation for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials with Annexes I and II.

The OECD Convention is the first major international treaty specifically to address 'supply-side bribery' by sanctioning the briber. The OECD Convention establishes an international standard for compliance with anti-corruption rules by 36 countries, including the 30 OECD members and six non-member countries, with the leading OECD exporting countries receiving particular attention. This book is an article-by-article commentary which gives particular attention to the results of the OECD monitoring process as applied to state implementation. Companies in particular are at ever greater risk of legal and 'reputational' damage resulting from failure to comply with the anti-corruption standards set inter alia, by the OECD Convention. This book provides them with comprehensive guidance on the OECD standards. The commentary also constitutes a significant work of comparative criminal law. It is written and edited by persons who include experts involved in development of the Convention standards as well as academics and legal practitioners.

In declaring the war against terrorism President George W. Bush also declared war on the financing of terrorism. The call to arms has been complemented by a concerted effort world-wide to track down and freeze the assets of suspected terrorists and financial institutions have risen to these challenges over the last year contributing their expertise gathered mostly through techniques to combat money laundering. In this book bankers, regulators and academics pose a variety of questions from their individual perspectives: To what extent are new laws really new? What can financial institutions realistically contribute to the suppression of terrorist financing? Can individual rights be protected in these circumstances? These questions are analysed by experts who come up with some thought provoking answers.

Corruption undermines nearly all key legal and developmental priorities today, including the effective functioning of democratic institutions and honest elections; environmental protection; human rights and human security; international development programs; and fair competition for global trade and investment. This book chronicles the global anticorruption steps taken since the movement advanced after the end of the Cold War. It provides a realistic assessment of the present state of affairs by critically evaluating what existing anticorruption programs and treaties have accomplished and documenting their shortcomings, while developing an action agenda for the next decade. The authors argue that reformative action is imperative, and the forces of globalization and digital communication will level the playing field and erode the secrecy corruption requires. They define corruption, document its effects, discuss the initiatives that changed public perception, analyze the lessons learned, and then evaluate how to move forward with existing initiatives charting a new path with new, differentiated strategies.