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On 1 March 2023, the EPPO presented its annual report for 2022. It is the first annual report that provides the picture of a full calendar year after the EPPO had started to exercise its competence on 1 June 2021.

In an open letter, the ECBA makes statements on the first case dealing with the interpretation of the EPPO Regulation before the CJEU. The case was referred by the Oberlandesgericht Wien (Austria) and poses the question as to which extent the courts of the assisting European Delegated Prosecutor (EDP) can verify an investigative measure under their national law when it was authorised in the Member State of the EDP handling the case.

The European Court of Auditors has started working on an audit to assess the Commission’s actions in protecting the EU’s financial interests and the sound financial management of the EU budget against rule of law breaches.

In its judgment of 26 January 2023, the CJEU ruled that the systematic collection of biometric and genetic data of any accused person in order for them to be entered in a police record is contrary to the requirement of ensuring enhanced protection with regard to the processing of sensitive personal data.

This news item continues the reporting on key EU reactions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 in view of the impact on justice and home affairs and on the protection of the EU’s financial interests. The overview covers the period from November 2022 to December 2022.

On 22 November 2022, the CJEU, sitting in for the Grand Chamber, declared the current provision of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive invalid by which the general public had nearly unrestricted access to data of beneficial owners.

On 17 November 2022, the CJEU delivered a judgment that interprets several provisions of the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive. The case concerned questions as to when enhanced due diligence measures must be taken, how information on the customer’s activities is to be obtained, and how information on the sanctions applied to obliged entities is to be published.

On 16 December 2022, the Council decided to withhold €6.5 billion of EU funds for Hungary. It is the first Council decision applying the new conditionality mechanism which allows the EU to protects its budget if certain breaches of the rule of law by an EU Member State adversely affect the sound financial management of the EU budget.

This news item continues the overview of recent rule-of-law developments in Poland (as far as they relate to European law) since the last update in eucrim 3/2022, 168-169.

On 19 December 2022, the Commission proposed new rules that will update and further harmonise the EU's legal framework on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings.