FATF (Financial Action Task Force) plans to issue detailed instructions in October this or February next year on the implementation of its new recommendations on transparency of beneficial ownership, said the head of the Secretariat’s Risk and Policies Department organization Tom Neylan.
The next FATF plenary meetings are scheduled for October and February.
Speaking at a FATF-sponsored seminar on Thursday, Neylan noted that the organization has begun the practical implementation of its new legal entity transparency standard. In this regard, the discussion participants discussed the best world practices in the field of creating registers of beneficial owners of companies, the need for constant monitoring of the relevance of the information contained in the registers, the importance of interaction in this matter between the private and public sectors.
Emil van der Doos de Villebois, Head of Global Financial Markets at the World Bank, recalled that almost all criminal schemes that the international community is fighting against use legal entities in one way or another.
Michael Levy, a professor at Cardiff University, believes that the FATF, by implementing the new recommendations at the international level, should thereby “ensure a level playing field.” In his opinion, if there is no transparency of companies, then there is a real threat that international business will simply ignore minimally risky partners, because otherwise, in the conditions of a lack of information, they will have to do so many additional checks that the client will simply “become unprofitable” for them.
“Countries are often surprised when they find that the FATF Evaluation Panel starts looking in the public domain for information about permanent or nominee directors during the evaluation. It happens unexpectedly. But we check it,” Neylan said.
Neilan and European Commission Policy Officer Chiara Bakchi agreed on the importance of using public registers. In their opinion, not only the accuracy of the information collected is important, but also the interaction between different national registries. “I’m not talking about real harmonization (of registers – IF), but at least about the relationship, when we can find common information,” Bakci said.
In March, the organization adopted amendments to recommendation 24 (transparency and beneficial owners of legal entities). The amendments oblige countries to prevent the misuse of legal entities for money laundering or terrorist financing by ensuring that adequate, accurate and up-to-date information is available on the beneficial owners of legal entities.
The authors of the amendments insist on the introduction of a multi-vector approach, that is, the use of a combination of various mechanisms for collecting information on beneficial ownership in order to ensure its timely availability to government bodies.
Jurisdictions should apply any additional measures necessary to identify the beneficiaries of companies. These measures should include the storage of information obtained by regulated financial institutions and professionals, regulators or stock exchanges.
The FATF is an intergovernmental body established in 1989 that develops standards and promotes the effective application of measures to combat money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The FATF standards include recommendations, as well as explanatory notes to them and definitions. The measures provided for by these standards are mandatory for all members of the organization. The extent to which the relevant measures are implemented in practice is checked through a system of mutual evaluations.
The association of Ukrainian media, journalists and public organizations “Mediarukh” calls on the world’s media associations to condemn the propagandists of the Russian Federation, as Polish journalists did, reports on the website of the public organization “Internews-Ukraine”.
“On August 24, 2022, the Association of Polish Journalists published a strong statement regarding Russian propagandists, who should be held accountable as war criminals… “Mediarukh” calls on world journalistic organizations and national media associations to support the position of the Association of Polish Journalists and, as a united front, seek fair punishment for all those whose efforts, the propaganda machine of the Kremlin works at full capacity and every day leads to hundreds of innocent victims and destruction,” – reads the statement posted on Friday.
“Mediarus” emphasizes that “Kremlin propagandists should answer to the same extent as the Russian military” for calling for the murder of Ukrainians, justifying the war crimes of the Russian army, misinforming the population of the Russian Federation and the world community.
The statement of Polish journalists, in particular, states that “Russian propagandists posing as journalists, such as Margarita Simonyan, Vladimir Solovyov, Dmitry Kiselyova, Olga Skabeeva and many others, should be tried as war criminals after the fall of Putin’s regime.” .
“Silpo” supermarket chain has opened a fifth store in Uzhhorod, the retailer’s press service reported.
As reported in the release, this supermarket (150 Kapushanska Street (Peremogy)) with an area of 925 square meters. m planned to open in the spring during cherry blossoms in Uzhhorod. His theme was the Japanese stone garden or Zen garden.
“The full-scale invasion of Russia prevented the plans, now we are opening a store in a “modest” format. The design elements are only those that we managed to complete in the winter. We collected all the equipment that was not purchased last year, bit by bit, from stores that were forced to stop working,” – reports releases
“Silpo-Food” LLC was established at the beginning of August 2016. As of September 2022, there are 299 supermarkets operating in the network.
According to Opendatabot, the founder of the LLC is PJSC “Closed non-diversified venture corporate investment fund “Retail Capital” (100%, Kyiv), the ultimate beneficiary is Volodymyr Kostelman.
Fozzy Group is one of the largest Ukrainian retailers with more than 690 retail outlets throughout the country. The company develops trade networks of various formats: “Silpo” supermarkets, Fozzy Cash&Carry wholesale hypermarkets, “Fora” convenience stores, Thrash! discounters, “Bila Rashka” pharmaceutical supermarkets, Ringoo personal electronics stores.
In January-August of this year, the Zaporizhia metallurgical plant “Zaporizhstal” reduced the production of rolled products by 56.3% compared to the same period last year – to 981.6 thousand tons.
According to the company’s information on Friday, steel smelting during this period decreased by 58.3% – to 1 million 106.1 thousand tons, iron – by 51.7%, to 1 million 418.2 thousand tons.
In August of this year, the steel mill produced 145.6 thousand tons of pig iron (36.4% by August-2021), 94.4 thousand tons of steel (27.8%), 74.7 thousand tons of rolled steel (26.6% ) ).
“The decrease in the level of production compared to the same period last year is related to the shortage of raw materials and logistical problems caused by full-scale military operations on the territory of Ukraine,” the press release explains.
At the same time, it is recalled that in connection with the escalation of hostilities in the region, since the beginning of March, the “Metinvest” group has transferred part of the equipment of the “Zaporizhstal” plant to hot preservation mode. At the end of March, “Zaporizhstal” partially resumed the operation of the cold-rolled shop for the production and shipment of cold-rolled coils to the European consumer. A month after the forced shutdown, the plant took the equipment out of conservation and partially resumed production. Since April 2022, the plant has been operating at an average of 50% of its capacity.
As reported, Zaporizhstal in 2021 kept the production of rolled products at the level of 2020 – 3.204 million tons, reduced steel production by 0.1% – to 3 million 778.25 thousand tons and increased pig iron – by 0.1%, to 4 million 473.5 thousand tons.
“Zaporizhstal” is one of the largest industrial enterprises of Ukraine, the products of which have a wide demand among consumers both in the domestic market and in many countries of the world. The plant specializes in high-quality steel g/k roll, g/k sheet, cold-rolled sheet, h/k roll made of carbon and low-alloy steels, as well as steel strip, black tin, bent profile.
The main consumers of the products are manufacturers of welding pipes, enterprises of automobile, transport, agricultural engineering, and manufacturers of household appliances.
“Zaporizhstal” is in the process of integration into the “Metinvest” group, the main shareholders of which are PJSC “System Capital Management” (71.24%) and the group of companies “Smart-holding” (23.76%).
“Metinvest Holding” LLC is the management company of the “Metinvest” group.
Ratio of the number of the unemployed in different regions of Ukraine in 2021 (thush people)
State employment center
Ukraine exported 1.7 million tons of agricultural products from the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdenny in the first month of the grain initiative, the press service of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine reported on Friday.
According to the release, during August, 68 ships left the unlocked ports, the ports of destination of which are located in 18 countries of the world.
At the same time, 19 vessels departed from the port of “Odesa”, 13 from “Pivdenny”, and the port of “Chornomorsk” sent 36 vessels.
According to the ministry’s announcement, as part of the grain initiative, three times more agricultural products were exported from the ports of Odesa in August than during this month by road transport.
“Only in August, more than 1.7 million tons of food were exported through the ports of Great Odesa. During the same period, almost 1.6 million tons were exported through the Danube ports, about a million tons by rail, and more than 600 thousand tons by road,” commented the Minister of infrastructure of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov.
According to him, in September, it is planned to reach the rate of transshipment through unblocked sea ports at the level of at least 3 million tons of products. At the same time, it is planned to export at least 8 million tons by all modes of transport.
According to the ministry, in August, Odesa Port exported 419,000 tons of agricultural products, Chornomorsk – 848,000 tons, and Pivdenny – 459,000 tons. At the same time, Ukrainian agricultural products went mainly to Asia (726 thousand tons), Europe (640 thousand tons) and Africa (365 thousand tons). Also, 60.8 thousand tons were sent to Ethiopia and Yemen as part of the UN food program.
According to the ministry, 66.9% of exported agricultural products fell on corn, 21.6% – on wheat, 4.8% – on barley and 6.7% on other agricultural crops: sunflower, rapeseed, bran and pulp.
In turn, Kubrakov emphasized that in August, about 5 million tons of agricultural products were exported from the unblocked and Danube ports, by rail and by road. According to him, this is a record figure since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia.
As reported, on July 22 in Istanbul, at the suggestion of the UN, Ukraine, Turkey and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres signed an initiative on the safe transportation of grain and food products from the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdenny.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, EXPORTED, Grain initiative, ODESA, PORTS
