Key developments in Financial Crime Transcript

RH:  Good morning, everybody. Thank you all very much for joining us today and on behalf of Ashurst's Contentious Financial Services Group and our Corporate Crime Team, a very warm welcome. I am Ruby Hamid, I am going to be chairing our session today. I am a partner based in London and I'm really excited to be joined today by my partner, Olivier Dorgans, who is a partner in our Paris team, newly joined Ashurst, so really excited about having him on our first webinar today, and Ross Denton who many of you may have heard from before. And his area of expertise, Ross is a senior consultant in our team and is our Head of International Trade and Sanctions.

This is the fifth in our series of bite-sized webinars, covering key topics of the moment which we hope are useful to you. One word on housekeeping, we will hopefully have time for questions at the end of the session, that's our aim, and there is a Q&A chatbox available for those, so keep them coming as they pop into your mind during the course of the session and we will come back to answer them at the end of the session [as we can]. In the interim, all microphones will be muted and you will see Olivier, Ross and I on the screen.

So thank you, as I say. Without more delay, let's have a look at our agenda for today. So we are going to be looking at key developments in three of what we think are the most pressing financial crime issues of the day: money laundering, bribery and corruption and sanctions. We are going to think about really a global picture today for you. We're going to try and pick up some global trends and some of the recent headline cases and give an update on new legislation and regulations in relation to money laundering and bribery and corruption. We are also going to have a focus-in on France's latest guidance on bribery and corruption and how that impacts businesses globally and also the UK's new anti-corruption sanctions regulation, and then we are going to talk about sanctions in more detail. Some really interesting things that have been happening recently: the new UK sanctions regime, plenty happening in relation to Myanmar, Russia, China, and then a bit of thinking about penalties and how that might look in the future. So plenty to get into.

I am going to kick off by talking about money laundering this morning and Ross and Olivier, I know, have got some interesting points they want to chip in on.

So let's have a think about global trends in money laundering. I would focus on the four that are here on the screen. Harmonisation globally is one of the things that we are seeing increasingly. It has arisen largely by the work of the Financial Action Taskforce who, as many of you will know, is the supranational body which is driving AML improvement across the globe. That is really driving what we are seeing as an increased picture of consistency in the ways that countries approach and enforce money laundering. The EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive 6 is one of those key pieces of harmonisation, bringing together a consistency across Europe in terms of lists of predicate offences for money laundering and also punishments. And I think we're seeing that harmonisation, not just in the way that legislation and regulation is set up but also in the way that anti-money laundering is enforced.

So some absolutely huge fines and enforcement activity that we are seeing. In the UK last year, we saw that huge fine from the FCA for commerce bank activity and really very detailed explanation for the regulated sector on how money laundering risk was embedded in those particular failures of systems and controls and a really sort of detailed piece of guidance to the sector on how to avoid those sorts of problems.

Enforcement activity has increased [though] across the world. In the US, there were more global AML fines issued in the last six months of last year then there were in the 12 to 18 months before that, 700/800 million dollars at our last time of counting, and in Europe enforcement in particular against banks operating in the Nordic region has resulted in some really record fines. But actually last year it was Australia that took the prize for the biggest AML fine with a 1.3 billion Aussie dollar settlement, that's approaching 1 billion US dollars, for a settlement with Westpac and that was the largest fine in Australian corporate history. So I think that of itself is a really strong indicator of how much importance global regulators and prosecutors place on AML and how pivotal they consider it at the moment.

I wanted to pick up on two points in relation to the non-regulated sector and also fintech. So, Laura, just a moment on the previous slide, if you don't mind. This last 12 to 18 months has seen enforcement authorities extend their gaze to companies outside of the financial sector. We have been seeing authorities in AsiaPac and also in mainland Europe building up a track record of taking enforcements against non-financial institutions. And this is of course a changing trend, isn't it? We have all been conscious in the regulated sector of AML being at the forefront of focus for years now but for that to become a key issue for non-financial institutions, it is a new piece of work.

I wanted to mention briefly fintech and cryptocurrency because this is one of the regulator's headaches. It's a complex area and there are challenges in how it's going to be dealt with and regulated. There's been some quite interesting activity in the US; an enforcement action against Binance, which is one of the biggest cryptocurrency trading platforms, an arrest in relation to cryptocurrency trading just last week, and of course here in the UK, the FCA is now the regulator for cryptocurrency and is bringing in changes to make sure that cryptocurrency trading companies report on their financial crime stats. So I think that's one of the trends that we're going to see more of, perhaps the US leading the way, and we'll have to see where others follow.

So looking, if we can then, at the next slide. Thank you very much, Laura. I wanted to give you a whistle-stop update on what's happening in regulation and legislation around the world. In Europe, what I've called a relentless focus of AML activity being the lens through which all financial crime is viewed. I think we've seen from the FCA, interestingly, in the last few months, the first use of the criminal sanctions for money laundering through the money laundering regulations. That's been a big standout piece of work for the FCA, and interestingly the cum-ex trading outcome against Sapien Capital which the FCA announced last week, was again viewed through the lens of financial crime. So the explanation by the FCA of why that particular conduct was in their view so egregious, was that it posed a risk of financial crime and in particular a risk of AML. So that lens is very sharply focused.

Olivier, did you want to say something about the new legislation in France and what its impact is going to be?

OD:  Yes, of course, Ruby. A decree was adopted in France in early November of last year and it was very much on the radar of a lot of companies, and the decree has surprised and shocked a lot of people in the legal world in the sense that it's now putting an onus on all companies, not simply regulated companies but all individuals and all companies in France, to ensure that they have the right systems to detect the potential trading they do or potential [inaudible] of sense they have with people that are either on sanctions lists or on terrorism financing lists.

And this is quite groundbreaking in the sense that there are no exceptions. It's a strict liability regime which means that, for instance, retail companies are under the obligation since that decree was adopted, to screen, at least theoretically, all of their customers, all of their suppliers, and that's very novel in the sense that only the regulated entities in France and some sectors, such as for instance the high luxury sectors, have adopted such mechanisms. So again something that isn't very well known of companies in France. It also applies to all legal entities incorporated in France, so subsidiaries of British companies or European companies that are active in France, irrespective of whether the sectors have to put in place these measures, so something we should on … you should be on the lookout for in the coming months.

RH:  That's interesting. And really interesting, Olivier, that there's no risk-based approach that's being promoted here, it's a strict liability offence.

OD:  Indeed. And that's something we've had an official discussion with the Minister of Finance in France and we've tried to highlight that approach, which is quite maximalist, and it seems that it's fitting in the trend of much stricter expectations from the French regulator and the terrorism financing angle is what is put forward as a response. So again something which companies should be on the lookout for to the extent they operate in France.

RH:  Okay. And one to watch in terms of how that's enforced, I guess.

I'm going to add a few lines about what's happening in Asia. We're seeing a raft of new legislation and also enforcements in Asia, both of Asian companies and also enforcement outside Asia against Asian companies. So, you know, I guess the takeaway is an increased appetite for enforcement both within Asia and of Asian companies. Some quite interesting work being done by DOJ in the US in terms of their focus on China and, unsurprisingly, some responsive legislative action and enforcement action by China in terms of blocking tight statutes to prohibit individuals and entities from providing information to regulatory authorities outside China without seeking permission first from the Chinese authorities.

Our sense is that the 1MDB sprawl, if I can put it that way, continues to focus in on Asian activity but also has provided some confidence to Asian enforcement authorities who have been working hard on the 1MDB kind of output and really giving them confidence to enforce in a way that perhaps wasn't the case previously. So for businesses who operate in Asia, or who have branches or subsidiaries in Asia, I think my sense would be that Asian enforcement is now a much bigger risk than it was.

I just wanted to spend one or two minutes talking about the Middle East and, Ross, I'm going to bring you in here, if I may. Some really interesting news from the UAE who have approved new guidelines on AML and CFT. We're yet to see the text of those guidelines but part of what is called a National Action Plan, really triggered by a desire for again this global harmonisation in terms of approach, the Financial Action Taskforce piece. Ross, really interesting stuff there, don't you think?

RD:  Yes, I think it's … I mean, obviously anything to do with terrorism globally is sensitive but it's particularly sensitive in the Middle East and it does seem to be the case that the Gulf came under pressure from the US and others to really start to look at the issue of these issues more carefully. And obviously part of that will play into what the Americans think about Iran and their alleged promulgation of terrorism around the region. So it's a very political hot potato for the region but, as Ruby said, we are still waiting to see what comes out of this in terms of legislation and obviously, more importantly, really what is done with this in terms of enforcement. Is this something that's just simply being passed to placate the West or is this something that's really a deep-seated concern of the administrations there and they want to crack on with it?

So it will be a very interesting development and, of course, many of the sort of Gulf states, UAE, etc, have a lot of western investments and these types of rules that are now coming to the fore in those countries are going to make western investors have to take a different view as to, you know, how they deal with third parties in those countries, particularly, you know, with the large amounts of money that are going around and some of this stuff potentially being moved in to persons that are treated by the US and the West as being either terrorists or involved with terrorism.

RH:  Yeah, it's interesting. And I think we've seen sort of green shoots of enforcement from the Dubai Financial Services Authority who took a big series of actions recently against UAE banks and imposed in one case a fine of $600,000 for operating effectively an illegal money service bureau. So perhaps that sort of hard edge of enforcement is something we're going to see a bit more of. So I think the takeaway from us would be that that's a really key change. It's demonstrative of a change in the region and definitely one to watch.

Okay, so if we shake money laundering out of our head for a moment, let's move on and think about bribery and corruption. What I wanted to do with the few minutes of focus on this, is to think with you about some of the changing risks that we're seeing in ABC and in ABC enforcement, and then to update you on some of the really big headline cases and see if there are some interesting points we can tease out of those.

So global trends, I'm always interested in what the US is doing in terms of its enforcement and where that fits in terms of the proportion of enforcement overall globally. I think that's a really interesting metric. TRACE, the NGO, published their report just a couple of months ago on enforcement trends and interestingly the US, who has been the major bribery and corruption enforcer traditionally, now accounts for a smaller percentage of global enforcement actions than it did, as other countries step in and step up their enforcement activity.

So some of the news this week, for example, picking up again on 1MDB, there's been the Malaysian Ministry of Finance targeting major global investment banks as part of wider civil proceedings in efforts to recover that 20-odd billion in funds which have been allegedly misappropriated from the sovereign wealth fund of the country. So some really … some quite creative civil litigation post-criminal enforcement, which is a trend I think we are going to see more of, but not just the US who's doing that.

On supranational bodies and multilateral development banks, we think that's an area to watch. The new head of the World Bank Anti-Corruption Unit has been talking this week about how he wants to increase the prevention work that's done on the projects funded by the World Bank. In his view, much better to prevent wrongdoing than to have to investigate it after it's occurred. But interestingly he's talking about [putting] staff putting boots on the ground outside of Washington so that that sort of investigative, proactive investigative work can go on more actively, and that's a lead we see the Asian Development Bank talking about, the European Investment Bank too. So I think we might see some more stepping up of enforcement by non … country-specific enforcement authorities too, so that's something to think about there, particularly if you or clients who you fund are involved in themselves getting funding from an MDB.

A word about COVID, clearly an economic downturn creates an environment which fosters financial crime, that's not a surprise to anyone. The OECD [has] been explicit in saying that this environment is ripe for corruption, so we might expect there to be more corruption taking place but we're also seeing real changes in the way that enforcement authorities prioritise and resource cases, and their appetite for them. Lots of cases being closed. Here in the UK we've seen the Serious Fraud Office close investigations into British American Tobacco, into the engineering firm, KBR. We've seen cases against individuals closed in the case of Airbus, in the case of Serco, so that looks like a real rationalisation of what is on the slate of enforcement authority. And I think a similar picture in the US where the number of corporate declinations, those deals that are done with DOJ that is corporate self-report, they won't be publicly prosecuted. Those are down as well and our sense is that that's because of that COVID impact. So I think a slightly choppy picture, as we go into the next 6 to 12 months.

But a final note. In case we thought that the US authorities, who I say have been traditionally the greatest fear here, are sitting back, it's not the case. There have been resolutions amounting to $6 billion in the last 12 months, so plenty going on there. And if there were any doubt about the direction of travel, I think those figures really give us what we need.

So let's have a quick look at some of our favourite headline cases. But just some interesting things happening in relation to each of them. I wanted to draw out a couple of themes for you to give you something to think about. These are those sprawling cases. I mentioned 1MDB in that vein, cases which began as a, perhaps, relatively confined piece of investigation and have spiralled into multiple types of investigation. And perhaps something that we need to get used to because certainly our experience is once an enforcement agency gets within a case, multiple actions can spin out of it. So we've seen continued action for Airbus following its multi-billion dollar resolution in 2020 which was coordinated with authorities all over the world but in particular France, the UK, the US. We know now that the investigation into individuals has ended, so that's quite an interesting piece of development, but at the same time we know that a guilty plea was entered [to] corruption for one of the former Airbus units in relation to a contract in Saudi. So where one door closes in terms of this investigation, another one seems to open.

I think, thematically, this was a deferred prosecution agreement case. That, as we know, is a growing trend. It's now a tool that's on the statute book for countries across the world who have taken the lead [of initially] the US, who has been doing this successfully for a long time. A real piece of global cooperation, and that remains a key theme for us, but again this interesting question of action against the corporates but not against individuals and chewing around how you get to a position where it's possible to prosecute both individuals and corporates is a real challenge for an enforcement authority.

More activity in the Unaoil case, there have been further guilty pleas in February this year. That is a really complex investigation which has pulled in the oil and gas industry into a real knot. It spirals out of the use of an agent or agents, which is not uncommon in this sector and has really brought in players in this sector in ways that were not necessarily predictable from the outset, so that one is still unfolding.

And I think some really interesting things are happening in Petrobras. I mentioned this question of follow-on litigation. That's really the theme now with the Petrobras case, litigation by either Petrobras itself or by the Brazilian state to recover assets. And some quite interesting litigation happening there in the US against Samsung, for example, who Petrobras says bribed its officials, attempts by Petrobras to challenge arbitration in the US Supreme Court, some quite creative civil litigation going on at the moment which suggests that this episode in Brazilian criminal history is not yet over. And I think that post-investigative litigation is something that we should all be watching.

Okay, that's enough from me on recent cases. Two headline pieces of legislation and regulation we wanted to bring to your attention: Olivier is going to talk to us a bit about the French anti-corruption guidelines which is a really interesting piece of legislative change and affects everybody who does business in France, and then Ross is going to talk to us about a hybrid piece of regulation, really between corruption enforcement and sanctions.

Olivier, do you want to talk us through the guidelines? They're not new, are they? They've been in place for a while but it's the publication of them in an English language version which really tells us what the French enforcement authorities are planning here.

OD:  Yes, of course. You're right, Ruby, they're not new. The French Anti-Corruption Agency which was created in 2017 as part of the Sapin II Bill, published the first round of guidelines in December of 2017 and then it started its series of controls. Over 150 controls of companies that are subjected to the Sapin II Bill have happened since the permutation of the first round of guidelines. And the French Anti-Corruption Agency have dated these guidelines very significantly in January 2021, and concomitantly to this effect, it provided an English language version of the guidelines which in itself is very telling as it's highlighting in a way the tri-territorial focus of the French Anti-Corruption Agency.

As a reminder, the French Sapin II legislation, the French anti-corruption legislation applies extra-territorially in the sense that to the extent a French company falls within the threshold of 500 employees, €100 million turnover, all of its subsidiaries abroad, irrespective of their size, are subject to that law. But also all foreign … all French subsidiary of foreign companies are subject to that law. So say a British company or a German company that operates in France, to the extent the subsidiary itself falls above the thresholds of the Sapin II Bill, then it is subjected to this anti-corruption legislation which is one of the most stringent in the world in terms of prevention of corruption. And the guidelines themselves are very interesting in the sense that they are non-binding, at least in principle, but there are a lot of companies that start with controls over the past years, and to the extent a company doesn't want to comply with these guidelines, it needs to prove that what is has done is answering at the same level the prevention of corruption obligation that falls upon company. So it is actually … to the extent you don't abide by these guidelines, you are put in quite a difficult situation when you are controlled.

The change itself, and it's actually very interesting from trying to understand the expectation of the French Anti-Corruption Agency as part of its control, it's a restructure of the pillars of the law itself. For those who are familiar with the Sapin II Bill, the law is structured around eight pillars arranging from a corruption risk mapping to policy and procedures training, accounting controls, internal controls, all sorts of measures that companies are under the obligation to put in place as part of the law. And what the French Anti-Corruption Agency interestingly has done as part of this guideline is to restructure the pillar and to merge these eight pillars into three pillars.

And the three pillars that are now put forward in these guidelines are as follows: the first is from the top. And we're not talking about from the top in the sense of there is a note from your CEO or from your board members about the importance of fighting corruption, there's expectation … and we've seen that as well as part of the controls we've assisted our clients on, to actually have senior management but also mid-management, the messengers of these prevention measures. So there's a very strong focus as part of the controls. And interestingly that's actually beyond what the Sapin II Bill says explicitly, so you can see where the French Anti-Corruption Agency here plays a very significant role in putting together soft law that, even though it's non-binding, is something that companies have to pay close attention to.

The second pillar is the corruption risk method itself. And it's a very difficult exercise and it's something that most companies that are controlled by the French Anti-Corruption Agency fall below in terms of standards. The methodology is quite complex and the expectations of the French Anti-Corruption Agency are very precise. So what the French Anti-Corruption Agency has done in this guideline is to explain very clearly what it expects companies to do as part of this anti-corruption risk mapping which is at the cornerstone of your prevention framework.

And the third pillar is basically a merge between the remaining five pillars. And it's interesting as well because it shows – and that's something that I wanted to highlight as part of this very short overview – it shows the fact that until you have successfully conducted an anti-corruption risk mapping, and until you've been able to draw your people … draw all your senior management and your middle management's attention on the topic on the prevention of corruption, all of the measures that follows will not even be looked at by the French Anti-Corruption Agency. So as part of the control, the first two things the French Anti-Corruption Agency will look at is what the tone at the top is, what is the tone at the level of middle management, and then how efficient and how thorough is your corruption risk mapping. To the extent it is successful in both these pillars, then they look into the third pillar which is a merge of the remaining pillars.

So it's something that companies operating in France and French companies operating worldwide should take the time to read and should take the time to prepare in anticipation of a control. And we see more and more activity of the French Anti-Corruption Agency, the controls are more stringent. They are also better trained now, the people who conduct the controls, so it's becoming more and more of a hurdle for a company to be in full compliance with the law and the soft law guidelines.

RD:  Olivier, is there any thinking that these inseparable pillars may go into other areas of compliance in France? So, for example, one could see simply with a cut and paste job that you could turn anti-corruption into sanctions or money-laundering. Is that the thinking of the French authorities or is this very specifically targeted towards bribery and corruption?

OD:  It's a very good question, Ross, because from a purely legal standpoint this is limited to bribery and corruption. At the same time, and we've seen that from the controls with this specific client, there's more and more temptation from the French Anti-Corruption Agency and the controllers at the French Anti-Corruption Agency to go beyond anti-corruption and bribery so … anti-bribery and corruption, sorry. So there's interest about money laundering, there's interest about fraud as part of these controls, there's interest about economic sanctions, so from a pure legal standpoint, these pillars should only be applicable to anti-bribery and corruption but as part of controls there's the likelihood that the tone at the top and the culture of compliance should also be factored in as part of the appreciation that the French Anti-Corruption Agency has of your compliance framework.

RH:  Interesting. Okay. Ross, I'm going to ask you, if you don't mind, to tell us a bit about this … what I've called a hybrid. Is it really a hybrid?

RD:  I think it is fair, actually, to say it is a hybrid. I mean, it's probably worthwhile just spending one minute on the new UK system as a result of us finally leaving the European Union. Over the period between us agreeing to leave the European Union and actually leaving, we did put in place a new Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act called SAMLA back in 2018 and a number of extremely detailed and long sanctions order regime or regime orders that replicated very closely, or at least structurally, those that were in the EU. So we took across the EU measures and replicated most of those. One of the things that actually was, interestingly, omitted were the sanctions that the EU had imposed on Egyptian and Tunisian government members, or past government members, for their expropriation of state funds and it was sort of an interesting question as to why we hadn't done that.

We kind of know the answer to that now, if we can just flip on, Laura, to the actual slides on sanctions. We know that that sort of thing was in the background working away through there because we came out with this new, as Ruby has called it, this hybrid measure which came out a couple of weeks ago. It is interesting where this fits in, this whole idea fits in, of the UK and to a lesser extent the EU actually sort of segmenting the general sanctions regime that they've had for a number of years So it's sort of one of the trends that we are seeing, and particularly in the UK, is the use of the sanctions template, if you want to think of it in that respect, to actually deal with different issues. So we've had them in respect of cybersecurity, we've had them in respect of human rights, and now in the UK at least we've now got a very specific one in respect of what they call global serious corruption.

I don't think it's particularly any surprise that we would have got these sanctions, there has been a lot of discussion around Magnitsky-type measures and it's no coincidence that the persons that have been initially sanctioned under this new piece of legislation are virtually identical to those, or at least I think it's 21 out of 22 persons that have been sanctioned under the UK regime are actually already sanctioned under US Magnitsky regime.

But why is it hybrid? Well, what it really does is … I think the way to look at this is to say there are people that the Bribery Act just doesn't get access to; they're overseas, they're heavily buried in the sort of regimes where we won't get access to them, so how can we deal with them? Well, the way to deal with them is then to use the old sanctions template to say, actually, these guys have done something that's really quite serious, really quite troubling to the world community, and we need to make sure that bad things happen to them which of course include, from that sanctions template, asset freezes and travel bans, etc. So if you look at it through that particular way, from a practical perspective for you guys out there, this isn't really anything new in the sense of you don't actually have to do anything differently; all that's happened really is that the screening software that you use now has a number of new names added to it.

Now of course there are some different … some small differences and obviously differences between the Bribery Act and what's happened here. So for example this new global sanctions regulation doesn't apply to private bribery, it won't apply to private bribery, and does require an FPO to be involved which is not necessary, obviously, under the Bribery Act. But in that situation, we've got these new people that are now subject to sanctions and then the circumstances of what happened to them is effectively the same as we've got under the general sanctions regime, as I said, you know, asset freezes, travel bans, etc.

RH:  So a framework that we recognise, Ross, but slightly augmented?

RD:  Yes. And I think it is probably the case that the UK government said, "We can't continue to use the general sanctions to impose sanctions on people for whatever we like, we have to have these narrower bases, these narrower legal bases, for placing sanctions on them", because they would just go to UK courts and they would just say, "This is ultra vires" and would probably win. So they set up new structures that use the same template but just are very specifically focused on particular bad activities.

RH:  Okay. Interesting. Thank you, thank you very much.

Olivier, in the last few minutes that we've got this morning, can you pick out some of your highlights from the EU and the European legislation and regulation? There's a particular case, a Bank Melli case, which has been much talked about.

OD:  Indeed. Thank you, Ruby. Just before getting into the Melli case, just to continue on Ross's overview of the anti-corruption sanctions regulation. Interestingly, the EU has done the same in late December last year on human rights. Similar to what the UK did last summer, what the US did on two occasions in 2012, 2015, it has adopted a piece of legislation which allows member states to identify individuals which are linked to alleged human rights violations and place them on sanction lists. And interestingly when Ross was presenting the narrower scope, I agree with Ross in the sense that it's now forcing the Commission the find evidence otherwise it would [contested] of human rights violation to list these individuals and corporations, but at the same time it's a very interesting piece of legislation in the sense that in Europe, up until recently, we had a country-based approach. We had a cybersecurity and cyber criminality sanction piece last summer, now we have a human rights sanction piece which is also providing more flexibility for the EU to adopt legislation because we have 27 member states, it's quite difficult to be on agreement from a geopolitical standpoint, so these pieces of legislation allow for swift resolutions and adoptions of sanctions, for instance in the Navalny poisoning case or in the Uighur repression in China.

Turning then to… and I will be very brief on that, but it's a very hot topic and it's very recent. Last week, on May 12, the Advocate General Hogan delivered an opinion which was very much awaited as part of the preliminary ruling which was requested by a German court before the European Court of Justice in the case between Bank Melli and Deutsche Telekom.

And you may wonder why should I care about the Advocate General's opinion in that case. It is going to be … it's a very interesting opinion in the sense that it's trying to answer a debate that has been raging for the last 25 years about the European blocking regulations which was adopted, for those who are familiar with that piece of legislation, in 1996 following the Helms-Burton and the D'Amato-Kennedy Act which were the first pieces of true tri-territorial US secondary sanctions. It was a legal answer from the EU and in essence basically it's putting European companies in a situation where they have to either abide by that regulations or to abide by some US secondary sanctions which are identified as part of the blocking regulations.

In essence it means … and that's the case at hand, that should a European company decide to terminate a contractual relationship on the sole basis of pure compliance with some US secondary sanctions regulation, then it is in breach of the … or at least that's the opinion of the Advocate General, it is in breach of the EU blocking regulation and the Advocate General believes that that is not sufficient ground to justify the termination of the contractual relationship. And again that doesn't … we don't know how the European Court of Justice is going to react to that opinion from the Advocate General, but it is in itself extremely interesting because so many companies in Europe are wondering how to handle terminations of contractual relationships with Iranian counterparties, notably, and that has been the case since 2018, since the Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA.

So we will be very much on the lookout for the ruling from the Court of Justice but I strongly encourage your interest in the topic, and if a company is wondering whether or not it should abide by the EU blocking regulation, to read carefully the opinion of the Advocate General because it is in itself quite ground-breaking and it's possibly one of the most significant developments in terms of sanctions over the last few years.

RD:  And I think we'll be issuing a note on that today, Olivier, right? I think that's right, yes.

OD:  We've put an analysis which we will circulate to everyone who's interested, of course.

RH:  That's brilliant, and a really interesting place to end. We've come to the end of our slot so I'm afraid we don't have time for live Q&A but do please contact me or Olivier or Ross, any or all of us, with your questions. There are a few questions in the chat which we'll answer directly by email, if that's okay with those who have sent them, and do please carry on this discussion with us. As you can tell, we're happy to talk about areas that we're interested in, so do please get in touch. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. It's been a whistle-stop tour but we wanted to pack in as much as possible, so thank you very much to Olivier, to Ross, for your wisdom and your insight and I hope you will have the rest of a good day. Thanks.

RD:  Thank you very much.

OD:  And thank you for moderating and presenting. Thank you.

RH:  You're welcome. Okay.

RD:  Thank you.

OD:  Thank you, Ross.