On March 29, 2012, the U.S. Senate improved potential for U.S. international tax enforcement by confirming the nominations of . the confirmation of Kathryn Keneally as Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division and Michael E. Horowitz as Inspector General for the Justice Department as well as approving the income tax treaty with Hungary and the protocols to the income tax treaties with Switzerland and Luxembourg.

The World Bank has released a report, Justice for Forests: Improving Criminal Justice Efforts to Combat Illegal Logging, which details how law enforcement can effectively prevent illegal logging by tracing the illegal profits of logging rather than focusing solely on local prevention.  The report outlines part of the problem, in that the massive profits stemming from illegal logging are used to pay off local officials and politicans.  The report also cites organized criminal groups as those chiefly responsible for illegal logging operations, and notes that they can most effectively be targeted through money laundering investigations.

The entire report is available here.

As a result of resource shortages, the U.S. Department of Justice Tax Dvision has detailed for six months 30% (25 of 95) of its prosecutors to U.S. Attorneys offices.  Another three took permanent assignments.  A Bloomberg article has called attention to the detailing of DOJ Tax Division attorneys.

The European Parliament and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have reached a preliminary deal on the sharing of air passenger information.  The agreement resolved the handling of Passenger Name Records (PNRs), the personal information collected by airlines during the reservation process.  The information will now be stored in a database for five years, before being moved to a dormant database for up to ten years, subject to stricted controls.  The information would be used to help governments prevent terrorism or transnational crimes.  The deal will go into effect once the entire European Parliament votes on the issue.

Coutts & Co., a private U.K. bank, was fined on March 26th, 2012, by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), for violating money laundering rules. Politically exposed persons (PEPs) were not subjected to sufficient checks, a key requirement in anti money laundering rules.   The FSA, which is conducting an industry-wide review of money laundering rules, found fault with Coutts on nearly two thirds of its files for PEPs.  

Brazil has filed criminal charges against Chevron and Transocean in response to their failure to properly halt or prevent a 3,000 barrel leak from an oil rig off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.  Brazil had previously filed an $11 billion civil lawsuit against the two companies in response to the same leak.  The charges, though unlikely to result in jail time for Chevron or Transocean executives, serve as a warning to other oil companies operating recklessly in Brazil.   

Future IELR articles will discuss the comparative criminal law issues in how the United States and Brazil have dealt with major oil spills by some of the same companies.

On March 22, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it has established comprehensive arrangements with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) as part of long-term strategy to improve the oversight of regulated entities that operate across national borders.

On March 2, 2012, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, participated  in the closing session of the High-Level Hemispheric Meeting against Transnational Organized Crime held in Mexico City, during which he called upon States "not to give in to the magnitude of the work in the fight against the scourge of transnational crime; nor be seduced by the supposedly easy short-term solutions, and above all never surrender to the enemy or reconcile with him.” The meeting began yesterday at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign A

Libyan officials recently restated their determination to try Seif al-Islam, the son and former heir-apparent to Muammar Qaddafi, at home, rather than allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) to try him abroad.  Despite having no effective police force, court system, or detention facilities, the Libyan interim government has protested the involvement of the ICC, for fear that Seif al-Islam will be tried in The Hague or elsewhere.