Kategorie: Reference

Germany is scheduled for evaluation by the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, in Autumn 2020, prior to which the country must officially gauge its exposure to money launderers, terrorist financiers, corrupt officials and their professional facilitators.

Germany’s Finance Ministry fulfilled that obligation Monday by publishing a national risk assessment that acknowledges several of the country’s well-known shortcomings, such as its general failure to govern real estate for anti-money laundering purposes and fully address the threat of cross-border illicit finance that comes with its status as the EU’s export champion.

On ACAMS I MoneyLaundering.com, Dr. Thomas Altenbach (act legal Germany), former Compliance Director of Deutsche Bank, gives a critical assessment of the recently published national risk assessment. Read more about what he sees as further risks and why an action plan is so important for the future.

The report provides a wide range of crucial information and figures on the real estate sectors in key regional markets: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.

Over the last five years the real estate market in the region has grown exponentially and consolidated its positive perception among investors. Local economies growing at a fast pace, profound infrastructure improvements, unemployment reaching historical lows, a high inflow of FDIs, a steady growth of wages and purchasing power; all these factors form a solid pocket which supports bright prospects.

act legal Czech Republic (ŘANDA HAVEL LEGAL) won the Telecommunications & Media category in EPRAVO.CZ’s prestigious “Law Firm of the Year“ ratings, adding another victory on top of last year’s win in the Energy and Energy Projects category. In addition, ŘANDA HAVEL LEGAL placed highly in the thirteen other categories.

Mgr. Martin Řanda, LL.M., the head of ŘANDA HAVEL LEGAL’s Telecommunications & Media team, considers this award a great success: “Our law firm has dealt with legal issues in the field of media since its foundation and in recent years has gained mandates also in the area of telecommunications. Both of these areas go through significant dynamic development and the involved companies have to react to rapidly growing competition with technological innovation and new business models. Legislation is, unfortunately, always one step behind. This is why working in these areas represents not only a challenge for us, but is also extremely interesting and creative in terms of seeking innovative legal procedures. We are proud to be able to solve these problems and provide our clients with the most secure and effective solutions. Great thanks to all our colleagues, as well as to all our clients, without whose confidence we wouldn‘t have won this award.”

In competition with almost 80 Czech and international offices, ŘANDA HAVEL LEGAL was “highly recommended” in the categories of Energy and Energy Projects, Restructuring and Insolvency and Competition Law and was “recommended” in the categories of M&A, Development and Real Estate Projects, Information Technology Law, Banking and Finance, Intellectual Property, Public Procurement, Corporate Law and Labour Law. In addition to the above, ŘANDA HAVEL LEGAL was recommended in the special category of Czech Companies on International Markets. This result puts us among the best law firms in the Czech Republic.

The annual awards are decided by an independent group of 250 evaluators from the ranks of companies and institutions, as well as by EPRAVO.CZ, an independent entity that monitors and follows lawyers in the Czech Republic.

„New Financial Investment Brokerage Ordinance tightens rules for independent brokers“ – Independent brokers, brokers and their customers must prepare for extensive changes –

There were two major regulatory developments this year for participants in the German financial sales organisation:

On the one hand, the legislator has enacted the new Financial Investments Mediation Ordinance (FinVermV). The FinVermV transfers the rules that apply to BaFin-regulated brokers to the exceptional area of financial investment brokers in accordance with the Gewerbeordnung (GewO – German Commercial Code). Their rules are somewhat less strict than the rules for banks and asset managers who require a permit under the German Banking Act (KWG). The FinVermV was passed on 20 September 2019 and will enter into force on 1 August 2020 after a ten-month transitional period. It would be fatal, however, to postpone this issue for a long time. There is an urgent need for action, as some changes may take a long time. Among other things, the FinVermV stipulates that smaller brokers should also record and archive telephone conversations with customers in the future in order to be able to work in a legally secure manner.

Secondly, the Federal Ministry of Finance published a key issues paper shortly before the FinVermV. It confirmed the grand coalition’s plan to bring all financial intermediaries operating in accordance with the German Commercial Code under the control of the Financial Supervisory Authority BaFin and not, as before, under the control of the Chambers of Industry and Commerce. BaFin is to take over supervision from the beginning of 2021. For insurance intermediaries, the IHKs will remain responsible.

Due to our experience in implementing MiFID II, FinVermV no longer contains any surprises for us. We recommend that you check the current status of your internal compliance processes. We will then be happy to discuss the results of your audit with you or come by for a personal meeting in order to point out any mandatory adjustment requirements and possible improvements.

In addition, we advise you to regulate the retention periods in connection with telephone recordings separately with your customers, since the legally stipulated retention period of five years could not cover a possible limitation period for judicial claims and you therefore have no evidence of the consultation held at hand in the event of a judicial dispute. We would also be pleased to advise you in this context.

The pma focus is the largest project management congress in Austria, which takes place every year.  It took place on 30 October at the Austria Center Vienna under the title „PM UNDER CONSTRUCTION – Project Management in Transition„.

Two of act legal’s lawyers, Dr. Thomas Block, MBA (Germany) and Dr. Martin Wiedenbauer (Austria) attended the congress, lecturing about „Wenn der Roboter entscheidet – Wer achtet auf die Regeln im Projektmanagement?“ / „When the robot decides – Who pays attention to the rules in project management?„. 

For more details see the congress’s website.

act legal Germany’s associate Dr. Nina Honstetter is currently spending a month in act legal Spain’s office in Madrid. She is excited: „I’m doing great here in Madrid! I have great colleagues, it’s really interesting to see the daily work at act legal Spain and the city itself contributes its rest to the fact that I feel very comfortable.“

The act legal lawyers exchange program offers the opportunity to learn firsthand about domestic and international practice in a country and culture different from your own. In addition to opening up a lawyer’s cosmopolitanism and horizons, one of the main objectives is to strengthen the ties between act legal law firms and its associates by getting to know each other better both from a professional and a private point of view.