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German criminal courts handed down first judgments in a major EPPO case that dismantled a VAT carousel fraud ring involving luxury cars. This scheme was investigated since 2021 by the EPPO in Germany, and is estimated to have caused losses of at least €13 million.

On 4 May 2023, the Council adopted conclusions on corruption as an obstacle to development. The conclusions emphasise the increased urgency of adopting a whole-of-government approach to combatting corruption in context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the illegal war of Russia against Ukraine. In particular, …

EU law does not preclude a person from being prohibited from all elective public office for three years if he / she has infringed the rules relating to conflicts of interest by holding such office. This statement was made by the ECJ in its judgement …

The new law on collaboration platform to support the functioning of joint investigation teams was passed and published in the Official Journal of the EU in May 2023. facilitate and improve the day-to-day coordination and management of joint investigation teams (JITs).

With its Grand Chamber judgment of 14 February 2023 in the case Halet v. Luxembourg (application no. 21884/18), the ECtHR put an end to the long-lasting legal battle between one of the whistleblowers who triggered the LuxLeaks scandal and the state of Luxembourg. While previous judgments denied the defence of whistle-blower status according to Art. 10 ECHR (freedom of expression), the ECtHR’s Grand Chamber decided in the opposite and found a violation of Art. 10 ECHR.

On 25 January 2023, MONEYVAL published its fifth-round evaluation report on Estonia based on an onsite visit concluded in May 2022. Among other things, the report encourages the country to reinforce the capacities and performance of the private sector and improve its law enforcement efforts in the field of AML/CFT.

On 23 January 2023, MONEYVAL pub-lished its fifth-round evaluation report on the Principality of Monaco, based on an onsite visit concluded in March 2022. The fifth evaluation round builds on previous MONEYVAL assessments by strengthening the examination of how effectively Member States prevent and combat money laundering (ML) and ter-rorism financing (TF). The report states that Monaco demon-strates a moderate level of effectiveness in relation to the following issues:

On 26 January 2023, GRECO welcomed in a report the Slovenian Constitutional Court’s decisions that parliamentary inquiries into particular judicial proceedings and decisions by judges and prosecutors were unconstitutional, as they risked violating judicial independence.

On 9 March 2023 GRECO published its fifth round evaluation report on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The country joined GRECO in 2000 and initially had a positive track record of implementing GRECO recommendations; however, the trend has been declining. While 83.3% of the recommendations were ultimately implemented after the first evaluation round, full implementation of recommendations declined to 43.7% in the second and to 45.4% in the third evaluation rounds.

On 1 March 2023, GRECO published its fifth round evaluation report on Austria. The country has been a member of GRECO since 2006, implementing 67% of the recommendations of the joint first and second evaluation rounds and 76% of the recommendations of the third evaluation round.