Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

The Forensic & AML department was this week appointed Center Deloitte Luxembourg vient d’être nommé Centre of Excellence in the Deloitte network worldwidse. There are five Centers like this to provide support and services in their area.


See press release (in french)

[Strasbourg, 14/06/2007]

The Group of States against corruption - GRECO has this week published its Seventh General Activity report (2006) which was presented yesterday to the Committee of Ministers by GRECO’s President, Mr Drago KOS (Slovenia).

The report provides details of GRECO’s operation during 2006 and of its co-operation with other international players. GRECO presents information about its First and Second Evaluation Rounds and about the preparation of the Third Round which was launched in January 2007. The Third Round deals with two distinct themes, i.e. the incriminations provided for in the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173), its Additional Protocol (ETS 191) and Guiding Principle 2 of Resolution (97) 24, and the transparency of party funding (Recommendation Rec(2003)4).

An entire chapter devoted to the protection of “whistleblowers”, based also on GRECO’s second round evaluations, provides some interesting pointers for countries which are considering adopting measures to enhance the protection of persons who report acts of corruption in public administration or to create a whistleblowing culture.

During the course of 2006, four new members joined GRECO: Austria, the Republic of Montenegro, Switzerland and Ukraine. Following the accession of the Russian Federation to GRECO in February 2007, the group now has 44 member States.

See report

On 12th July 2006 the Monegasque Tribunal had found William Fogwell guilty of the charges against him in relation to the collapse of Hobbs Melville in 2000 and had sentenced to 5 years prison. He was also fined €500,000. Fogwell was not in court for the sentencing and an international arrest warrant was issued against him. He was a fugitive from justice. Shelley Fogwell, the 45-year-old daughter, was also convicted of fraud charges against her. She was sentenced to four and a half years in prison and fined €300,000.
Guillaume Losada, Shelley Fogwell's former boyfriend, and Jean-Christophe Moroni, a broker, were as well found guilty and jailed and fined €100,000. Patrick Grasset, another broker, was discharged and released.

The case is being judged at the court of appeal. William Fogwell surrendered a couple of days ago at the begining of the new trial. Both Fogwells and Jean-Christophe Moroni are appealing against their conviction of embezzling 175 million euros of investors' money. But there was a major dysfunction in the Justice of Monaco and the trial has been postponed by the court until 8 June. Lawyers on both sides are accusing the Principality of delaying the case deliberately, following suggestions that officials were aware of the fraudulent financial dealings

Know more (in French)

Article 1 from Le Figaro

Article 2 from Le Figaro

Website dedicated to the case