Improving the detection and reporting of suspicious financial transactions: the Spanish case

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the obligation of regulated entities to detect unusual and suspicious transactions and to report them to external control bodies, as established by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, the European Community Directive and also the Spanish regulations for the Prevention of Money Laundering. This research paper also aims to create a model to identify and report suspicious transactions to improve financial institutions’ current procedures. Design/methodology/approach According to the Spanish regulations which comply with the FATF recommendations and the European Community Directive on the Prevention of Money Laundering, regulated entities must detect unusual and suspicious transactions. Within this framework, the present research work analyzes both criteria and procedures used by the regulated entities to report suspicious operations. It also assesses the efficiency of the reports sent to an external control body. For this purpose, both analytical and interpretative methods are used in this research paper. Findings In Spain, the current procedures followed by regulated entities to analyze unusual transactions are complex. This results in difficulties to report suspicious transactions involving money laundering. As a consequence, the cases of suspicious transactions reported to the external control body are often unclear and the related process is inefficient. Originality/value The creation of a harmonized model with the aim of detecting suspicious operations and analyzing them will improve the detection and the effectiveness of the suspicious operations procedure which are reported to the external control body. However, such unified model should take into account the currently used activities proposed by each financial institution.

Policy for Promoting Analytic Rigor in Intelligence: Professionals’ Views and their Psychological Correlates

Following significant intelligence failures, the United States intelligence community adopted Intelligence Community Directive 203 (ICD203) to promote analytic rigor. This study developed two reliable psychometric scales to examine how strongly intelligence professionals (N=108) endorsed the ICD203 facets and the extent to which they believed their organizations complied with those facets. All facets yielded a high level of endorsement and perceived organizational compliance and the endorsement scale revealed three principal components (“unbiased”, “rigorous”, and “relevant”). Facets reflecting intelligence aims (e.g., “be unbiased”) were endorsed more strongly than those reflecting means (e.g., “use visualizations”). As well, organizations’ compliance was judged to fall short of the level of support personally endorsed. ICD203 endorsement was positively related to conscientious and actively open-minded thinking, whereas perceived ICD203 compliance was positively correlated with conscientiousness, job satisfaction and affective and normative commitment. The new scales could be profitably applied in future research on intelligence policy-related issues.

Regulating for Australia's Youngest Workers

Child labour is a phrase associated with exploitation, poverty, insufficient education and various forms of physical abuse. These connotations do not match Australian perceptions about the employment of children and are not correlated with mainstream dialogue on teenagers in part time and casual employment. Child employment is an accepted part of Australian society, with older children making up a significant portion of the workforce. Minimum standards are increasingly regarded a critical safeguard for young Australians at work, evidenced by recent state level statutory amendment and enactment of dedicated legislation. This article makes two submissions; first, it suggests the regulation of young people's working conditions is inappropriately neglected at national level in Australia, and secondly, it proposes national standards should be set and equated with those in other developed economies, meeting international standards. The 1994 European Community Directive on the Protection of Young Workers is referred to as a suitable benchmark.

Constitutional identity and the European Courts

The Conseil constitutionnel has spoken again. In a decision of 27 July 2006, no. 2006-540 DC, the French constitutional court has further and significantly elaborated on earlier rulings on the status of Community directives in the French legal order. In the summer of 2004, it had ruled, in cases in which it was asked to declare unconstitutional an act of parliament implementing Community directives, that ‘the transposing of a Community directive results from a constitutional requirement with which non-compliance is only possible by reason of an express contrary provision of the Constitution’ (decisions of, inter alia, 10 June 2004, no. 2004-496 DC and 29 July 2004, no. 2004-498 DC). Very recently, the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative court, took a similar stance in a case in which the constitutionality of a government decree implementing a directive was at stake (Decision of 8 February 2007, Société Arcelor Atlantique et Lorraine et autres).

Content of Toxic and Essential Metals in Canned Mussels Commonly Consumed in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Concentrations of three toxic heavy metals (Hg, Pb, Cd) and six essential heavy metals (Fe, Zn, Mn, Cr, Cu, Ni) were determined in mussel conserves (Mytilus galloprovincialis, Bivalvia, Mollusca) consumed habitually by individuals in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). A total of 600 samples were analyzed, corresponding to six different commercial brands and four different processing types: pickled sauce (mixture of olive oil, vinegar, red pepper, laurel, and salt), coquille St. Jacques sauce (coquille St. Jacques broth), nature (water and salt), and bionature (water, salt, and soluble vegetal fiber). Samples were collected weekly from markets in Santa Cruz de Tenerife during a 12-month period. All values for toxic metals were lower than the permitted maximum for human consumption as proscribed in European Community Directive 2001/22/CE (1,000 μg/kg wet weight for Pb and Cd) and European Community Decision 93/351/EEC (500 μg/kg wet weight for Hg). For the six essential heavy metals, mussels are a very good source, contributing high percentages of the recommended daily allowance.

Relevance and application of the EU Water Directive in terms of Spain's National Hydrological Plan

The National Hydrological Plan Act was passed after the publishing of Community Directive 2000/60/EC. Officially, the Act has taken the existence of the Directive into account, but its handling of the regulation of the Ebro transfer ignores fundamental issues of the Directive, in that it does not envisage the principle of cost recovery, does not clearly determine the uses to which the transferred waters will be put, and it is not orientated towards sustainable development. Furthermore, Spanish public contract law is not in line with Community Law, and this may have repercussions in the practical aspect of possible European subsidies for carrying out the transfer.