In June 2023, the Netherlands and Belgium joined Sweden and France on a joint investigation team (JIT) working to identify suspects and victims of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed by the Islamic State against the Yazidi people in Syria and Iraq. The EU-based JIT, founded in 2022 between Sweden and France, seeks to investigate foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) residing in the EU. 

On July 18, 2023, the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions held a hearing entitled “Potential Consequences of FinCEN’s Beneficial Ownership Rulemaking”.    The testimony unanimously underscored serious gaps in the rulemaking for the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).  The Beneficial Ownership Information reporting element of the CTA is scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2024.

On July 5, 2023, United States District Court Judge John G. Koeltl issued an opinion and order, denying defendants’ motion to dismiss the civil action brought by the Belgian Government (Federal Public Service Finance – FPSF) against several purported pension plans and individuals associated with them. The case involves the cum ex-dividend schemes. The opinion adopted much of the reasoning of the opinion of Judge Lewis Kaplan, who denied the motion to dismiss by defendants in a cum-ex dividend case involving the Danish Government.

On August 8, 2023, the United States Department of Justice announced indictment charges against a convicted felon and Barbados resident who allegedly posed as an experienced Wall Street stock trader with operating a securities scam that defrauded victim investors of approximately $3.1 million.

INTERPOL and AFRIPOL successfully coordinated a four-month Africa Cyber Surge II operation across 25 African countries, resulting in the arrest of 14 suspected cybercriminals and the identification of 20,674 suspicious cyber networks.  The operation underscores the surge in digital insecurity and cyber threats in the region and illustrated the cooperation by INTERPOL’s Cybercrime Directorate, under the auspices of the INTERPOL Africa Cybercrime Operations desk and INTERPOL’s Support Program for the African Union in relation to AFRIPOL (ISPA).   The operation identified networks connected to financial losses of more than USD 40 million.

On August 10, 2023, the United States and Colombian Governments did the first joint resolution of a criminal case as Corporación Financiera Colombiana S.A. (Corficolombiana), a Colombian financial services institution,[1] has agreed to pay $80 million to resolve parallel bribery investigations by criminal, civil, and administrative authorities in the United States and Colombia arising from the company’s participation in a scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to high-ranking government officials in Colombia.[2]

On August 14, 2023, the National Crime Agency (NCA)in the United Kingdom announced it has charged the Chief of Staff to the President of Madagascar and her associate with bribery after a NCA operation.

After the United States Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Bank of New York barred 14 Iraqi banks from conducting dollar transactions, Iraq has taken enforcement action against currency traders and increasing air and land border checks to prevent U.S. dollars from use by Iranians.

On July 27, 2022, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg convicted German ISIS member Jalda A. of aiding and abetting genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes for the enslavement and abuse of a young Yazidi woman, “M”.  The court sentenced the defendant to five years and six months in prison.  The conviction is the second one of an ISIS member for genocide for atrocities committed against the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq and Syria.  M joined the proceedings as a co-plaintiff and served as the key witness.  Barrister Amal Clooney and German lawyers Sonka Mehner and Natalie von Wistinghausen represented M.

The purpose of this article is to examine the regulation of ‘autonomous sanctions’ in another Commonwealth jurisdiction, that of Canada. Given the topicality of the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine, the article references the measures that Canada has taken against Russian nationals and legal entities.