Chetan Sahu Personal Blog

What is Facilitation payment? A facilitation payment, commonly known as a grease payment or facilitating payment, is defined as a amount paid to a public or government official to expedite work or governmental processes. This type of payment serves to ensure that a task is completed more swiftly or effectively than it would typically occur. For example, a person seeking to register their company with the relevant authority and paid the standard fee required for the registration. The officer accepted the documents, collected the fee, and informed the individual to wait for two weeks. However, since the person needed the registration completed within four days, they decided to pay an additional amount to speed up the process. This extra payment is known as a facilitation payment, while the initial fee paid is simply the standard fee set by the authority. US FCPA vs UK Bribery Act! In the United Kingdom, facilitation payments are classified as bribery and are prohibited by the...

The title may appear unusual without any context, and you might be wondering about it. The reason is that everything I've encountered lately has centered on DD which stands for Due Diligence. A term you might have come across in various contexts. However, I’m here to provide my perspective on due diligence specifically in relation to Anti-Money Laundering (AML).   What exactly is due diligence? Is it merely research focused on a particular topic, or does it involve uncovering elusive details? Due diligence is a blend of the both; it represents a thorough investigation aimed at uncovering factors that could influence a process, a decision, or any significant matter at hand. For compliance professionals, due diligence means gathering and documenting crucial information required by regulatory authorities guidelines. This includes details about the business, key stakeholders, any negative media attention, as well as relevant policies and codes of conduct. Even though thi...

The first signs of tax heaven appeared after World War I in some countries, such as the United States, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, but it was really shaped between 1960-1964 by the British Empire, which is so massive that it can be referred to as the second empire. This blog will not delve into history because it is about compliance. SWISS LAW The Swiss law mandated 'absolute silence in respect to a professional secret', that is, absolute silence in relation to any accounts held in Swiss banks. "absolute" here indicates protection from any government, including the Swiss. JURISDICTIONS To understand how tax heaven work, we will need to understand countries which make it possible I'll list the countries that are recognized to be tax havens or have a high level of privacy. These are countries where it is easier to operate accounts anonymously or with a nominee director, where a corporation can be a corporate director of another company, or where business transac...

A business should be well aware of the importance of completing due diligence on third parties before engaging in any transaction, even if it is for a short period of time. Third-party assessment is now more important than ever due to new regulations and guidelines. These third party poses significant compliance risks, including facilitation payment, bribery, corruption, sanctions, data privacy and more, can be introduced into a company's operation. Some of the regulations that compel businesses to do risk assessments on third party (below list is not exhaustive) German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act US Federal Reserve Guidelines France Sapin II Law Singapore MAS regulation Bank of England policy Every business such as banks, insurance companies, payment businesses, financial institutions etc, must conduct third party due diligence. I believe that in the years to come, we will see more stringent and mandatory guidelines from global and local regulators. So, how can we comply and st...