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The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) published their  Joint Opinion  on the proposed Data Act. The EDPS and EDPB welcome the efforts made to ensure that the Data Act does not affect the current data protection framework. At the same time, since the Data Act would also apply to highly sensitive personal data, the EDPS and EDPB urge the co-legislators to ensure that data subjects’ rights are duly protected. The access, use and sharing of personal data by entities other than data subjects should occur in full compliance with all data protection principles and rules. Moreover, products should be designed in such a way that data subjects are offered the possibility to use devices anonymously or in the least privacy intrusive way possible.

Governments need to step up their efforts and coordination to combat money laundering and terrorist financing by adopting stricter regulation and supervision of the virtual assets sector and the specialised “gatekeeper” professions, such as lawyers, accountants and other services providers who often help launderers, according to the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing body  MONEYVAL . In its  annual report for 2021 , MONEYVAL examines the action required to improve the combat against money laundering. It also assesses compliance with international standards and developments in the legal and institutional frameworks to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing in the 34 jurisdictions it monitors.

By Nicole K.Phinopoulou, Lawyer, Banking & Financial Services, LLB. LLM. LPC, CISL, University of Cambridge T Leaders around the world are reaffirming their commitment to accelerate measures to fight climate change. Similarly, Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), recently stated that the fight against climate change is on the agenda of ECB’s Governing Council on assessment and discussions when determining the monetary policy of the Euro-zone.

In its first annual report, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) gives an account of the first 7 months of its operational activity.  For the first time, statistics on EPPO operations per participating Member State, crime, seizures, number of indictments and other key figures are shared. While many expected a slow start followed by a gradual increase in activity, the EPPO worked at full speed from Day 1. The EPPO is a systemic part of the overall architecture put in place to protect EU taxpayers’ money.

In Papua New Guinea, defending women accused of sorcery, has become a life-threatening occupation. The UN and European Union run  Spotlight Initiative , is promoting legislation that will protect threatened human rights defenders in the country, who risk violence, torture, and death. 

By Christina Poursanidou, EU Qualified Lawyer and FCC Officer As presented by FATF’s Mutual Evaluation Report [1]  in early 2020, the UAE is exposed to significant ML and TF risks, due to its cash intensive economy, the large size of its financial sector, the expansion of the FFZs and the big volume of trade in gold and precious stones. Despite the significant improvements made by the UAE, there are still significant deficiencies and fundamental improvements are needed, in order to demonstrate that the system cannot be used for illegal purposes. Last month, UAE made a high-level political commitment to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime. Although, during March 2022 the seat of UAE in AML Compliance map was going to change significantly.

In Chamber judgment in the case of Al Alo v. Slovakia (application no. 32084/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) (right to a fair trial/right to obtain attendance and examination of witnesses) of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

By Efi Thoma, Lawyer LL.M. “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth”, said Albert Einstein. In Huxley’s Brave New World, it was predicted the emergence of a “controlling oligarchy” who would conduct similar experiments on human beings to condition docility and minimize the potential for civil unrest. In Brave New World, the main “reward” used to condition subservience via positive reinforcement was a super-drug called Soma. “The World Controllers”, writes Huxley, “encouraged the systematic drugging of their own citizens for the benefit of the state.”

European Commission refers United Kingdom to Court of Justice of the European Union over a UK judgment allowing enforcement of an arbitral award granting illegal State aid. The Commission has decided to refer the United Kingdom to the Court of Justice of the European Union in relation to a judgment of its Supreme Court of 19 February 2020 allowing enforcement of an arbitral award ordering Romania to pay compensation to investors, despite a 2015 Commission decision having found that the compensation infringed EU State aid rules.  According to the UK Supreme Court, on the basis of  Article351 TFEU , the UK's EU law obligations at the time did not stand in the way of its alleged international obligation to recognise and enforce the arbitral award under the International Convention for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. When the UK Supreme Court delivered its judgment, proceedings concerning the validity of the Commission's 2015 decision were pending before the Uni...

A new report from the International Bar Association (IBA) has revealed that of 3,000 young lawyers – defined as aged 40 and under – surveyed around the world, a significant number of them are either leaving or considering leaving their current job in the next five years. Fifty-four per cent of survey respondents reported that they were ‘somewhat likely’ or ‘highly likely’ to move to a new workplace, 33 per cent wanted to switch to a different area of the legal profession and 20 per cent were thinking about leaving the profession entirely.  The IBA Young Lawyers’ Report is based on the results of an international survey carried out by the IBA’s Young Lawyers’ Committee (YLC) and Legal Policy & Research Unit (LPRU) in collaboration with market research company Acritas (part of Thomson Reuters). The research was undertaken to identify young lawyers’ priorities, interests, and concerns around their jobs and future career plans; wh...

The European Ombudsman has criticised how the Commission handled a request for public access to text messages between its President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. She has now asked it to do a more extensive search for the relevant messages. In response to the public access request by a journalist, the Commission said no record had been kept of such messages, which were related to the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines.  The Ombudsman inquiry revealed that the Commission did not explicitly ask the President’s personal office (cabinet) to look for text messages. Instead, it asked her cabinet to look for documents that fulfil the Commission’s internal criteria for recording - text messages are not currently considered to meet these criteria. The Ombudsman found that this amounted to maladministration. “The narrow way in which this public access request was treated meant that no attempt was made to identify if any text messages existed. This falls short of reasonable e...

The Committee of Ministers of the 47-nation Council of Europe has referred the  Kavala v. Turkey  case to the European Court of Human Rights to determine whether Turkey has failed to fulfil its obligation to implement the  Court’s judgment  in this case, in line with proceedings provided for under Article 46.4 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In an  Interim Resolution  adopted on 2.2.2022, the Committee found that, by failing to ensure Mr Kavala’s immediate release, Turkey is refusing to abide by the Court’s final judgment in his case. This view is disputed by the Turkish authorities. In December 2019, the European Court ruled that Mr Kavala’s detention took place in the absence of sufficient evidence that he had committed an offence. It found that his arrest and pre-trial detention pursued an ulterior purpose, namely to silence him and dissuade other human rights defenders, and that the time taken by the Turkish Constitutional Court to ...

On 3 January 2022, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) notified Europol of an  order  to delete data concerning individuals with no established link to a criminal activity (Data Subject Categorisation). This Decision concludes the EDPS’ inquiry launched in 2019. In the context of its inquiry, the EDPS admonished Europol in September 2020 for the continued storage of large volumes of data with no Data Subject Categorisation, which poses a risk to individuals’ fundamental rights. While some measures have been put in place by Europol since then, Europol has not complied with the EDPS’ requests to define an appropriate data retention period to filter and to extract the personal data permitted for analysis under the Europol Regulation. This means that Europol was keeping this data for longer than necessary, contrary to the principles of data minimisation and storage limitation, enshrined in the Europol Regulation.   In light of the above, the EDPS has decided to...

In Chamber's judgment in the case of Mehmet Çiftçi and Suat İncedere v. Turkey (applications nos. 21266/19 and 21774/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.  The case concerned the sanction of one month’s deprivation of means of communication imposed on the applicants by the prison management for singing anthems and reading out poems (in December 2016) in memory of the prisoners who had lost their lives during the “Return to life” operation conducted by the authorities in prisons in December 2000.  The Court found that the disciplinary sanction imposed on the applicants constituted interference with their right to freedom of expression. It held that, notwithstanding the mildness of the sanction imposed on the applicants, the Government had not demonstrated that the reasons cited by the national authorities as justification for the measure complai...

In its decision in the case of Lee v. the United Kingdom (application no. 18860/19) the European Court of Human Rights has, by a majority, declared the application inadmissible. The decision is final. The case concerned the refusal by a Christian-run bakery to make a cake with the words “Support Gay Marriage” and the QueerSpace logo on it which the applicant had ordered and the proceedings that had followed. The applicant, Gareth Lee, is a British national who was born in 1969 and lives in Belfast (United Kingdom). He is associated with QueerSpace, an organisation for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Northern Ireland. Although same-sex marriage had been enacted in the rest of the UK in 2014, it was made legal in Northern Ireland only in 2020.  In 2014, Mr Lee ordered a cake for a gay activist event set to take place not long after the Northern Irish Assembly had narrowly rejected legalising same-sex marriage for the third time. He ordered it from Asher’s bake...

The EIB, the European Union's bank, is seeking to recruit for its Legal Directorate (JU) – Legal Department, Corporate (CORP) – Regulatory Matters Division (REG) at its headquarters in Luxembourg, a (Associate) Lawyer - Specialized in Regulatory and Governance Matters. This is a full - time position at grade 4/5. The term of this contract will be 4 years. Panel interviews are anticipated for end February 2022. The EIB offers fixed-term contracts of up to a maximum of 6 years, according to business needs, with a possibility to convert to a permanent contract, subject to organisational requirements and individual performance. The successful candidate will deliver the legal services required by the Bank in the area of EU and international banking and financial regulations and institutional law, including in relation to prudential and governance regulatory requirements and rules. Deadline for applications: 31st January 2022. More details and appli...

The Council of Europe’s European Commission for the efficiency of justice (CEPEJ) has adopted an  action plan on digitalisation for a better justice for 2022-2025 , aiming at reconciling the efficiency of new technologies and the respect of fundamental rights. This action plan sets the major orientations of the CEPEJ, whose main objective is always to place the user at the centre of the concerns, even in a digitised environment or in the course of digitalisation, by providing the user effective and quality public service of justice. These orientations are articulated around major axes aiming at ensuring that justice is always transparent, collaborative, human, people-centred and accessible, enlightened, and finally responsible and responsive. The CEPEJ has also adopted a  revised roadmap  for ensuring an appropriate follow-up of its  European Ethical Charter on the use of artificial intelligence in judicial systems and their environment . ...

by Giorgos Kazoleas, Lawyer LL.M. At the stage before concluding a loan agreement between the credit institution and the prospective borrower, the inequality regarding the negotiating power of the parties reaches its peak in order to complete the agreement. The pressure to agree on the contract clauses, which usually reflects the imbalance of rights and obligations between the two parties and while several of which are abusive, is not a neutral pressure, but the pressure of the financially and authoritatevely strong against the financially weak and mentally vulnerable. And this is despite the fact that the basic terms have previously been judged by case law or even legislated as abusive. One of the ways to avoid abuse by the credit institutions' position is the requirement of good faith, in the assessment of which, special attention must be paid to the negotiating power of both parties. It should be also assessed whether the consumer was motivated in any way to accept the clause ...

In its Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Abdi Ibrahim v. Norway (application no. 15379/16) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.  The case concerned the decision by the Norwegian authorities to allow the adoption of a child by a foster family against his mother’s wishes. The mother, a Somali national who had moved to Norway, did not ask for her son’s return as he had spent a long time with his foster parents, but wished for him to maintain his cultural and religious roots.  The Court decided to examine the applicant’s wish to have her son brought up in line with her Muslim faith as an integral part of her complaint under Article 8, as interpreted and applied in the light of Article 9 (freedom of religion). It was not necessary to examine separately any alleged failures to comply with Article 9.  The Court pointed out t...

This year’s  UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women  (25 November) shines a spotlight on the digital dimension of violence against women and girls. From body shaming (mocking someone’s bodily shape, size, or appearance) and cyber-flashing (sending unsolicited sexual images online) to doxing (sharing online a target’s personal information without consent), the rapid development of information and communication technologies also facilitates new avenues for violence against women and girls, exposing them to more risks of being abused. In its first recommendation on the “ digital dimension ” of violence against women, the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence ( GREVIO ) defines and outlines the problem of both gender based violence against women committed online and technology-enabled attacks against women, such as legally obtainable tracking devices that enable perpetrators to st...