Check out our recent FCPA blog: The Basel Art Trade Guidelines 10 years on.
Thomas Christ, member of the Foundation Board of the Basel Institute, provides a contemporary perspective on an industry sector that has increasingly come into the spotlight of law enforcement and business integrity circles in recent years – the Art Market.
Both in investment and in commercial arbitration, it is becoming more and more frequent that a party raises the objection of corruption, money laundering, fraud or bid rigging.
The challenges this presents for arbitrators and parties are considerable and were the topic of a conference organised by the University of Basel in cooperation with the Basel Institute on Governance.
Since 9/11, tremendous efforts have been made and large financial sums have been invested to build up efficient anti-terrorist financing systems. Nearly eight years later, concrete results are still difficult to identify.
The Basel Institute on Governance and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute signed a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2008.
The MoU defines terms of collaboration in the design and delivery of training courses on investigation, asset tracing and asset recovery; in the promotion of international legal cooperation and public-private partnerships to combat corruption, money laundering and the financing of terrorism; and in the provision of assistance in implementing international conventions on AML and corruption.
On 27-28 February 2011, a group of experts from 10 countries met in Lavin, Switzerland, to discuss the concept for the next Basel Institute on Governance conference on terrorist financing (the so called Giessbach conferences, named after the location of the first conference held in 2007) which is planned to take place in October 2011.
The group concluded that terrorist financing should not be seen as an isolated agenda but in conjunction with the threats originating from money laundering and organised crime.
From 26th January to 27th February 2011, the Basel Institute on Governance conducted seven multi-day training workshops on Anti-Money Laundering / Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) in co-operation with the Financial Intelligence Unit Secretariat of Zambia. Over 200 participants from the following areas attended:
The 2013 edition is the second release of the Basel Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Index. First published in April 2012, it continues to be the only rating of country money laundering/terrorist financing risk by an independent non-profit institution. A Public Edition of the AML Index is available online free of charge. An Expert Edition facilitates more sophisticated independent risk assessments for financial institutions, which have to comply with AML, counter-terrorism financing (CTF), sanctions, and anti-bribery rules.
In the context of the ICC Assembly of State Parties held in New York in December, the ICC and ICAR jointly organised a side event on financial investigation in the context of investigations into serious international crimes.
In conjunction with the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences (ISISC), ICAR conducted a 5-day training workshop on mutual legal assistance and misuse of offshore structures for countries of the MENA region in Syracuse, Sicily during the period 3-7 November 2014.
On 26 and 27 October 2015, the Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) supported the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a workshop, held at the seat of the Court in The Hague, on international cooperation and financial investigations. The workshop was supported by the Permanent Mission of the Principality of Liechtenstein to the United Nations and the European Commission and attended by experts from 13 countries and 6 international organisations.