On 30th March 2021 Polish parliament passed law amending the Act on counteracting money laundering and terrorist financing which was in fact an implementation of the European Parliament and the European Council Directive amending Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, and amending Directives 2009/138/EC and 2013/36/EU – UE 2018/843 [1] The amended Act should harmonize Polish regulations to the EU’s standards and the new Act is intended to replace the previous one dating 2000.
In the previous article we wrote about EU 5th AML Directive (2018/843). [1] Currently, after 6 months of passing the 5th AML Directive, the new 6th AML Directive was prepared and passed by the European Parliament and European Council. The new directive (EU 2018/1673) was passed on 23 October 2018 and came into legal effect on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the official journal of the European Union. In respect of the Directive provisions the Member States shall implement the 6AMLD by 3 December 2020 and immediately inform the Commission thereof.
It is unclear whether
the instrumental and intentional presentation of products with the help of influencers,
i.e. people active on the Internet, is a classic breach of competition law and
the ban on standard advertising. An Influencer in the world of social media is
an influential person who can influence their audience through their reach. These
types of people are sometimes used in marketing campaigns because they can
skilfully influence the behaviour of the audience. However, is this type of
sponsored content properly labeled and is it likely to mislead consumers? The Polish President
of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has recently launched
an investigation aimed at developing guidelines for people who earn money by
promoting products online.
publication date: September 30, 2021 – text updated onJanuary 23, 2023
It is currently accepted that only 5% of start-ups in the technology industry are successful. This fact means that, in principle, the investor has as much as a 95% risk of losing money. However, if the investment turns out to work with no failure the investors may gain millions.
The more
innovative the subject matter the bigger the risk
A good
example of a risky investment is a highly discussed case of Elizabeth Holmes.
She is the founder of biotech start-up, Theranos. The main concept of her
business was to create a blood-testing method which promises to detect a range
of illnesses with just a prick on the fingertip. She based her business idea on
her fear of needles. One device would replace professional laboratory machines.
The technology was supposed to revolutionize the healthcare industry. As this
idea seemed futuristic and innovative it
is no surprise that it seduced many high-profile investors that invested
millions into this business. Silicon
Valley investors have poured more than $200 million into projects in the past
years to build a device that analyzes blood – according to ‘Financial Times’. However,
in 2015 it emerged the blood-testing devices did not work and Theranos was
doing most of its testing on commercially available machines made by other
manufacturers. The company shut down three years later. Numerous problems have
arisen since then. The invention gave false results, resulted to undetected
diseases. As it later turned out, it was not the machine that tested the
samples, but a team of people appointed to do so. The machine was only an
object of advertising and marketing. Now Ms. Holmes faces 12 fraud charges and
she is accused of deceiving investors and patients with defrauding investors
through a ‘sophisticated, multi-year fraud’.
The
business obtained one of its first financings in 2004 from a well-known
investor from Silicon Valley, Tim Draper. Theranos founder began collaboration
with former senior U.S. government officials to serve on the board of
directors. Among them were: George Shultz (former Secretary of Labor, Treasury,
and State of the US government), Gen. James Mattis (US Secretary of Defense),
Henry Kissinger (former Secretary of State), William Perry (former Secretary of
Defense), Betsy DeVos (US Secretary of Education) and many other successful
individuals.
It sounds
surprising that highly respectable, influential people did not even ask Holmes
for detailed financial analysis and accurate product information. They have
lost millions of dollars because of being too superficial in their due
diligence.
British auction house Christie’s is where spectacular auctions take
place. Transactions that are carried out there are mentioned all over the
world. Many Christie’s auctions attract interest due to the fact that they may
be controversial, such as sale of an image created by artificial intelligence
or the work entitled “Femme assise près d’une fenêtre
(Marie-Thérèse)” by Pablo Picasso. Recently Christie’s announced that
another innovative auction is planned.
Namely its October “Post-War to Present” auction will include the
sale of 31 non-fungible tokens that are considered to be some of the oldest on
the Ethereum blockchain. A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data stored on
a digital ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be
unique and therefore not interchangeable. This will be the first ever live
auction with bidding conducted entirely in Ether. The NFTs that Christie’s is
offering in the fall have distinct legacies of their own. They are also
estimated to sell for between 250 and 350 ETH, which shakes out to
approximately between $870,000 and $1.3 million. These NFTs are Curio Cards that
were made in May 2017, so even earlier than CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties.
Aside from the Curio Cards NFTs, Christie’s will be auctioning NFTs
from the Art Blocks curated collection. Modern artists would have possibility
to choose their favourite post-war artworks and pay for them in Ethereum. The
tokens are representing real-world objects like art, music, in-game items,
videos and other seemingly mundane everyday signifiers. Works by renowned
artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell and Grace
Hartigan will be part of the auction alongside works by Wayne Thiebaud.
The event definitely created a buzz among art enthusiasts. NFTs are highly valued digital assets which
uses blockchain to record the ownership status of the aforementioned items. After
the transaction only the buyer of an NFT has the official of being its owner.
However anyone can still view the item.
Recently, several large cryptocurrency-based auctions have brought
in huge amounts of money in the art world. The upcoming “Post-War to
Present” auction is sure to create a buzz among currency enthusiasts. One
thing we can be sure of – a digital revolution is coming, and the world of
cryptocurrencies will surprise us more than once.
