April 2021 Regulatory Updates
Regulatory Actions and Updates from Around the Globe
Enforcement Highlights – April 2021
United States:
- The SEC awarded over USD $3 million to two whistleblowers who brought to light key issues and violations to help improve SEC’s ongoing compliance efforts.
- SEC filed charges against 8 companies for failing to disclose complete reporting information on required Form 12b-25 filings.
- The SEC charged fund manager and former race car team owner Andrew T. Franzone with multimillion-dollar investment fraud and misappropriation scheme.
- The SEC filed charges against Spot Tech House Ltd., a binary options trading platform, and two of its top executives with defrauding investors out of more than USD $100 million through unregistered online sales.
- The SEC charged seven individuals with defrauding investors out of more than USD $16 million through an oil-and-gas market manipulation scheme.
United Kingdom:
- The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) commenced criminal proceedings against 2 individuals for conducting unauthorized regulated business activities in the UK.
- The FCA banned and fined UK financial adviser Simon Varley £68,300 for providing unqualified, dishonest financial advice to retail customers.
Hong Kong:
- The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) fined Optimas Capital Limited $1.05 million over multiple failures with their short position reporting processes.
- The Market Misconduct Tribunal (MMT) sanctioned two former executives of Asia Telemedia Limited (ATML), now known as Yunfeng Financial Group Limited, for insider dealing.
learn more
Is your AML compliance too expensive, time-consuming, or ineffective?
iComply enables financial services providers to reduce costs, risk, and complexity and improve staff capacity, effectiveness, and customer experience.
Request a demo today.
Taking a Closer Look at Enhanced Due Diligence
Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) is one of the best ways to protect your business, as well as your customers, against the risks associated with fraudulent activities, money laundering, terrorist funding, and more. As a higher level of verification and identity...
How Does Edge Computing Assist with KYC?
As one of the most formidable technical features available on the market, edge computing gives KYC and AML solutions such as iComplyKYC a huge advantage when it comes to ensuring the privacy and security of customer data during identity verification and compliance...
What is KYC? Breaking Down the Basics of Know Your Customer
Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols have become an essential part of anti-fraud legislation designed to circumvent money laundering, the funding of illicit activities, protect customer data and provide other levels of heightened security. KYC processes are heavily...