Launch of the new Compliance Task Force of the European American Chamber of Commerce Auvergne Rhone-Alps in partnership with Soulier Avocats

Compliance has become a major challenge for all corporate functions and an essential element to secure business activities.

The stakes are high… and the financial, legal and reputational risks, often underestimated, are real.

In this context, the European American Chamber of Commerce Auvergne Rhone-Alps, a private and independent non-profit organization with affiliates in Paris, Amsterdam, New York, Cincinnati, Texas, Florida and the Carolinas, has decided to create, in partnership with Soulier Avocats, a new Task Force dedicated to compliance.

Led by our Counsel Claire Filliatre, the objective of this new Task Force is to allow the various compliance stakeholders to share their experiences and best practices in full confidentiality.

The kick-off session of this new Compliance Task Force took place on February 28, 2023.

The general public's access to data recorded in the register of beneficial owners is maintained until proper conclusions regarding the November 22, 2002 judgment of the CJEU are reached

Sophia El Makhoukhi, Esq.

In a judgment handed down on November 22, 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that the provision according to which information on the beneficial owners of companies should be accessible in all cases to any member of the general public was invalid, as it considered that such open access constituted a serious interference with fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

In a press release dated January 19, 2023, Mr. Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, Finance, Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, decided “to maintain the general public’s access to the data recorded in the register of beneficial owners until proper conclusions regarding the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union are reached”.

The Green Deal Industrial Plan: Securing the European Union’s clean tech leadership

Jean-Luc Soulier, Esq.

On February 1, 2023, the European Commission presented its Green Deal Industrial Plan to enhance the competitiveness of Europe’s net-zero industry and support the fast transition to climate neutrality.

The overall objective is to stimulate the development of clean technologies in the European Union and to ensure Europe’s strategic autonomy by reducing its dependence on third countries.

“When lawyers make history from Antiquity to the present day”

Emmanuel Pierrat, member of the Paris Bar, prolific author, has published in fall 2022 an erudite book showing through the centuries the role, sometimes revolutionary sometimes reformist, of very talented lawyers, often embracing at the end a political career at the highest level.

In 336 pages published by Albin Michel, Emmanuel Pierrat showcases the most famous lawyers, their fevers, their harangues, and the societal and cultural changes that their voice has prompted in our “modern” societies.

This is the case of our founding partner, André Soulier, Dean of the Lyon Bar, to whom Emmanuel Pierrat devotes six pages (pages 269-275) of his book, under the significant title “When the lawyer precedes the law” which praises a legislative reform that followed one of the acquittals he has obtained in his career.

International Perspective -  Guideline on New Anti-money Laundering Law

This month, we are pleased to feature a contribution entitled Guideline on New Anti-money Laundering Law, authored by Linh D. Nguyen, partner at Vietnam international law firm Vilaf.

While Vietnam remains a predominantly cash-based economy, its legal framework on anti-money laundering, according to the Asian Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG)’s assessment in its Mutual Evaluation Report dated January 2022, is still incomprehensive and limited, which makes the country itself vulnerable to risks of money laundering. Pursuant to the report on national risk assessment on money laundering and terrorism financing conducted by the Vietnamese authority for the period of 2012-2017, the risk of money laundering in Vietnam is assessed at “medium high” (trung bình cao). Of which, while banking and underground remittance are the sectors where the money-laundering risks are assessed at “high” (cao) level, corruption and gambling are the crimes identified to have high money-laundering risks.

In an effort to mitigate money-laundering risks and further enhance the country’s capacity against money laundering, on 5 August 2022, the Vietnam Prime Minister issued Decision No. 941/QD-TTg on the national action plan on anti-money laundering, terrorism financing, and financing for proliferation of mass-destruction weapons. Based upon this plan, the Vietnam National Assembly adopted the Law on Anti-money Laundering (Law No. 14/2022/QH15) dated 15 November 2022 (“New AML Law”). The New AML Law takes effect from 1 March 2023 and replaces the Law on Anti-money Laundering 2012.

The guideline mainly aims to provide readers with an overview of Vietnam’s regulation on anti-money laundering and salient points of the New AML Law in comparison with the old one.