31 October 2014
The legal fightback in the international arena by the owners of FBME Bank against the hostile and illegal takeover of its Cyprus branch by the Central Bank of Cyprus is underway. The latest act has been the completion of the filing in Paris of the shareholders’ case for arbitration with the International Chamber of Commerce. Now the Central Bank will have to justify its actions in an international forum.
30 October 2014
There is a belief amongst some people that if you ask the same question often enough you will eventually get the answer you want. Children sometimes do this: “Can I? Can I? Can I?” in the hope that the parent will finally give in. But we don’t really expect this from senior government officials do we?
29 October 2014
Arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris in the case of FBME shareholders and the Republic of Cyprus is now underway, with the submission of FBME’s case being completed on 28 October 2014.
14 October 2014
FBME’s submission, based on the exhaustive investigation into its operations, has been delivered to the US Department of the Treasury’s FinCEN bureau. We understand it is now being read and considered. A copy of the Public Comment which accompanied this is available for download here.
30 September 2014
On 29 September, the District Court of Nicosia has fixed the Interim Application filed by the shareholders of FBME Bank Limited for hearing on 21 October 2014.
18 September 2014
On 17 July, FinCEN announced a Notice of Findings and a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking against FBME Bank. The notices allow for public comments to be submitted to FinCEN by 22 September. The international law firm Hogan Lovells was instructed to engage with FinCEN and they in turn retained anti money laundering (AML) experts at Ernst and Young to carry out a thorough and independent investigation of FBME Bank and its policies and procedures, especially with regard to AML policies, procedures and practices in line with EU regulations, and specifically the latest Central Bank of Cyprus Fourth AML Directive.
