On April 14, 2016 at the meeting of the Finance Ministers and Central bank Governors of the G20, a 12 point communique was released along with a 9 point Annex and a 9 point "issues of further action". One of the twelve points addressed global initiatives to promote tax transparency, including the G20 requirement that the OECD establish objective criteria to identify non-cooperative jurisdictions with respect to tax transparency by its July 2016 meeting.

A U.N. war crimes tribunal acquitted ultranationalist politician Vojislav Seselj of atrocities on Thursday in a rare courtroom victory for a Serb defendant.  Seselj had been charged with crimes that included persecution, murder and torture and was facing a 28-year setnece for his support of Serb paramilitaries during the Balkan Wars in the early 1990s.  A three-judge panel's majority decision to acquit Seselj of all charges on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence linking him to the crimes sparked joy in Serbia and deep anger in Bosnia and Croatia.

In this landmark analysis, expert U.S. regulatory lawyer Bruce Zagaris poses the question: ‘has the United Sates abused its dominant position in global financial markets to impose higher regulatory requirements on competing jurisdictions than on itself?'
On April 26, Zagaris will head a webinar session on this topic. 
 

Following the approval of harsh new sanctions by the U.N. Security Council, the European Union is considering taking additional measures against North Korea in a demonstration of solidarity with South Korea and Japan, two of its major trading partners.  According to one EU diplomat involved in the discussion of further measures, the European Union is "...supporting [its] allies Japan and South Korea, who are directly threatened by North Korea's aggression".

The Spanish police raided the Madrid subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China on Wednesday and arrested five of the subsidiary's directors.  The bank, one of China's largest, has been accused of helping several Chinese and Spanish criminal syndicates commit financial fraud, according to Europol, the police agency of the European Union.