Posted by Hari on Thursday, May 12, 2016 with No comments | Labels: Roundup
Anti-Money Laundering:
Cameron to name secret foreign property owners
Foreign firms that own property in the UK will have to
declare their assets publicly in a bid to stamp out money-laundering, the
government says. Companies will have to be on a new register if they hold
property or want to compete for government contracts. The register would mean
"corrupt individuals and countries will no longer be able to move, launder
and hide illicit funds through London's property market, and will not benefit from
our public funds". Foreign companies owned about 100,000 properties in
England and Wales and that more than 44,000 of these were in London. The move
comes as Prime Minister David Cameron attempts to lead a wider effort to crack
down on global corruption. World leaders gathered in London for a summit aimed
at stepping up action to tackle the problem. Mr Cameron will also say that some
of Britain's overseas territories and crown dependencies will join 33 other
countries in agreeing to share automatically their own registers of company
ownership, information that will be accessible to the police. But Jude Scott,
the head of Cayman Finance, said the register would only be really effective if
it was global and all G20 and international financial centres took part. Wayne
Panton, the Cayman Islands' financial services minister, said a public register
would also only work if the information was verified. He said the Cayman
Islands had required company providers to collect and verify information for
the past 15 years, but he ruled out putting it into the public domain. BBC NEWS
Blacklisted for 30
years: construction workers win up to £75m compensation from Balfour Beatty, McAlpine
etc.
A long-running campaign to win compensation for construction
workers who were blacklisted by firms for union activities has finally ended,
with millions of pounds set to be paid out. Unite announced it had reached a
settlement with construction companies which will see 256 workers receive more
than £10m between them in compensation. The Unite union said payouts could
range from £25,000 to £200,000 per claimant, depending on such factors as the
loss of income and the seriousness of the defamation. But the GMB union, which
reached a settlement last month, said it understood the total value of
compensation in the case was around £75m for 771 claimants, with legal costs on
both sides estimated at £25 million. Blacklisting came to light in 2009 when
the Information Commissioner's Office seized a Consulting Association database
of 3,213 construction workers and environmental activists used by 44 companies
to vet new recruits and keep out trade union and health and safety activists. Some
of those on the list said they were denied work, while a handful moved abroad
because they could not find jobs in this country. Unite director of legal
services Howard Beckett said: "In addition to financial compensation,
admissions of guilt and formal apologies, the companies have agreed, as a
result of this litigation, to issue guidance to site managers to ensure
blacklisting is not occurring on a local level and to ensure that Unite members
receive no less favourable treatment for job applications, as a result of this
litigation." Tim Roache, GMB general secretary said: "We have secured
£5.4 million of justice for the GMB members blacklisted by powerful
construction companies who thought they were above the law. "For decades
household name construction companies implemented an illegal blacklisting
system, which denied a generation of trade union activists and health and
safety reps an opportunity to provide for themselves and their families.” INDEPENDENT
'Dangerous' payday
loans join guns and drugs on Google's banned ad list
Banning ads from payday lenders is a big move for Google,
the most visited website in the world, against a massive and mostly legal
market. Payday lending is a $46bn industry, and there are more payday loan
storefronts in the US than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined. The lenders – who
generally give out small loans – use extremely high interest rates and target
vulnerable, low-income communities, often entrapping people in circles of debt.
“Financial services is an area we look at very closely because we want to
protect users from deceptive or harmful financial products,” said David Graff,
director of global product policy for Google. The ban will go into effect on 13
July 2016. Google will also no longer allow ads for loans where repayment is
due within 60 days of the date of issue or ads for loans with an annual
percentage rate (APR) of 36% or higher. Ads for payday loans appear not only on
searches for lenders but also on related searches such as “I need money to pay
rent.” “If you’re broke and search the internet for help, you should not be hit
with ads for payday lenders charging 1,000% interest,” said Alvaro Bedoya,
executive director of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law. Janet
Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy
group for Latinos, said the ban was an example of civil rights organizations
and tech companies coming together “to help protect the rights of all Americans
online”. GUARDIAN
Tenant evictions up
in England and Wales
The number of households evicted from rental accommodation
in England and Wales rose by 5% in the first three months of the year, while
the repossession rate for homeowners fell to a record low. Seasonally adjusted
figures from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) show there were 10,732 repossessions
of rented homes by bailiffs between January and March, up from 10,253 in the
final three months of 2015. The number was, however, down on the 10,855 in the
first quarter of 2015. Meanwhile, separate figures from banks and building
societies show that the repossession rate among mortgage customers has fallen
to its lowest level. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said 2,100
properties were repossessed by its members between January and March, made up
of 1,500 homeowners and 600 buy-to-let borrowers. Since the financial crash the
cost of servicing a mortgage has fallen significantly, with lenders cutting
their standard variable rates as the base rate plummeted, and more recently
launching record low rates for new customers. Lenders have also helped
struggling borrowers stay in their homes. As a result, even during the
recession the number of repossessions remained well below the peak of 75,540
recorded in 1991. While mortgage costs have fallen, rents in the private and
social rented sectors have risen. The latest figures from rental referencing
agency Homelet showed a 7.7% increase in the monthly rent for new private
tenancies over the year to April. A cap on local housing allowance that came
into force in April could lead to an increase in the number of social tenants
who are evicted, warned the housing charity Shelter. Campbell Robb, chief
executive of Shelter, said: “Today’s figures are a painful reminder of the
catastrophic impact welfare cuts and our drought of affordable homes are having
on thousands of people in England.” GUARDIAN
UK industry in
recession for third time in eight years
It is the third time UK industry has been in recession in
eight years. Although industrial production rose 0.3% from February to March,
it fell 0.4% both in the first three months of 2016 and in the last three of 2015.
Compared with a year ago, manufacturing production in the first quarter fell
1.9%, the biggest fall since 2013. The biggest fall in output came from the
basic iron and steel sector which saw production drop in March by 37.3% percent
compared with a year earlier. Manufacturing and construction is proving to be a
drag on the whole economy, helping slow UK economic growth from 0.6% in the
last three months of 2015 to 0.4% between January and March, according to the
ONS. BBC NEWS
Britain staring into
a £309bn pension black hole with eight in ten final salary schemes in deficit
Figures from the Pension Protection Fund show 4,804 pension
schemes now have a black hole – up from 4,679 a year ago and 80.1 per cent of
the total. The issue has hit the headlines in recent weeks following the
collapse of High Street chain BHS, which went into administration with a
£571million black hole in its pension fund. The retirements of 134,000 steel
workers are also at risk after Tata Steel put its UK operations up for sale. The
PPF report shows that once the 1,141 pension schemes that are in surplus are
included in the calculations, there is an aggregate deficit of £270.2billion,
up from £230.8billion a year ago. The Pension Protection Fund pays compensation
to members of eligible defined benefit pension schemes, when there is an insolvency
and where there are insufficient assets in the pension scheme to cover pension
costs. DAILY MAIL
389 LSE-listed
companies are based in tax havens linked to UK
Research shows that 389 companies trading their shares in
London are registered in British overseas territories or crown protectorates. The
findings illustrate the scale of the relationship between the City and offshore
tax havens, which were in the spotlight at David Cameron’s anti-corruption
conference in London on Thursday. The prime minister has been under pressure to
invoke special powers that would force British tax havens to end their fiercely
protected secrecy since the emergence of the Panama Papers. The files leaked
from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed the extent to which UK
overseas territories, including the British Virgin Islands (BVI), were being
used to hide money offshore. The overseas territories have said they will not
sign up to central registers of beneficial ownership which would be available
to the public and are one of the key demands of the charities and
anti-corruption campaign groups eager to expose money launderers hiding their
gains offshore. To counter the rising criticism, Cameron said all foreign
companies buying property in the UK would be required to disclose their true
owners in a public register for the first time, though this falls short of
proposals for a central register. Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice
Now, which produced the findings, said “If companies want to get the legitimacy
and reputational enhancement of being listed on the London Stock Exchange, then
they shouldn’t be allowed to be registered in known secrecy jurisdictions.” GUARDIAN
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