Category: Op-Ed

OPINION | ECJ ruling on UBO registers ‘victory for common sense’

Martin Kenney welcomes a decision by the European Court of Justice that open beneficial ownership registers – sometimes called open UBO registers – are incompatible with the right to privacy. Unlimited transparency isn’t necessarily effective in the battle against economic criminals, he warns.

OPINION: Martin Kenney on new economic crime law & seizing oligarch wealth

Will the U.K.’s new Economic Crime Act really help crack down on illicit wealth? That’s the question posed by Martin Kenney in an exclusive opinion piece for the Toronto Star, who points out that loopholes in the UK’s new Economic Crime Act will restrict the its effectiveness and fall short of what transparency campaigners have long been demanding.

The Future Of Unexplained Wealth Orders

UWOs were intended to empower UK law enforcement agencies to attack the UK-based assets of high-net worth individuals with shady pasts who owned assets of questionable origin. They could also be used to target UK-held assets of politically exposed persons (PEPs) suspected of grand corruption in their home states.

TORONTO STAR: This is one list of leaders you don’t want to top: Global fines for financial institutions

Goldman Sachs

With no fewer than four of the five biggest fines levied against financial institutions in 2020 against U.S. financial institutions, the new administration needs to do much more than merely combat poor business and regulatory practices.