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7 OPINION 28.01.2021 T he COVID-19 pandemic has triggered unprecedented change on various aspects of life and society, forcing major lifestyle adjustments and turbulence in financial markets with institutions increasing their focus on high risk issues stemming from the crisis in additional to general business continuity issues. One impact has been that on financial crime with simultaneous supply and demand shocks to the global economy and widespread close of borders across the world impacting the ability of organised groups to continue normal oper- ations. Some of the main impacts relate to growing volume of alerts as changing customer behav- iours are leading to unusual transactional ac- tivity and challenges for know your customer operations to ensure customer files are kept up to date to business changes. In a time where sustaining business activity is critical, financial institutions are urged by regulators around the world to remain vigilant towards emerging COVID-19-related financial crime risks, continually strengthen controls in order to detect and report suspicious activity as well as remain up to date with evolving reg- ulatory requirements. One of the key recent updates on countering money laundering legislation is the Sixth An- ti-Money Laundering Directive which came into effect at the end of 2020 for EU member states. is Directive aims to close the gaps and loopholes in the definitions and scope of money laundering offences and associat- ed penalties, achieve broader consistency in anti-money laundering legislation across EU member states and seeks to facilitate greater law enforcement, exchange of information and judicial collaboration between member states' national authorities. Like many other regulatory aspects, over the past months, the enforcement process has also been subject to a number of noteworthy changes. ese range from revisions to the publication regime of fines to the potential for administrative sanctions against individuals in certain roles within the organisation. Intensified enforcement actions also continue to make headlines as both the volume and val- ue of administrative measures levied to Subject Persons in response to breaches of anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing laws and regulations continued to rise. e impact and management of financial crime risks in response to the COVID-19 pan- demic, recent financial crime enforcement actions and other current regulatory updates, including those stemming from the Sixth An- ti-Money Laundering Directive, will be dis- cussed in an upcoming series of webinars being organised by EY – Chasing a moving target – a quarterly round-up of financial crime regulato- ry updates with the first webinar scheduled on 9th February 2021. is EY event is CPE accredited. For more information on the event and to register visit ey.com/en_mt/events/chasing-a-mov- ing-target-1 Chasing a moving target Joette Sciortino Joette Sciortino is an EY Associate Partner and a specialist in financial crime consulting TWO planned power outages at Malta International Airport have allowed the company to modernise its electrical infra- structure as part of an invest- ment in a more robust energy supply. In parallel with works aimed at enhancing supply security, the company has also success- fully completed major lighting upgrades, which will contribute to a significant reduction in en- ergy consumption and lowered CO2 emissions. While several locations around Malta International Airport, including the main car park, have benefitted from LED switchovers in the past months, the most noteworthy improve- ments have been carried out on the airfield. e new centre lights on Run- way 13-31 are expected to con- sume 77 per cent less energy than the previous system, while newly installed floodlights will illuminate Apron 9 at a fraction of the wattage of the old system. Having had an energy-sav- ing programme in place for the past years, Malta Interna- tional Airport is no stranger to such lighting upgrades and the gradual replacement of existing equipment with more ener- gy-efficient alternatives. ese green initiatives, cou- pled with the generation of more than 927,000 kWh of clean energy from the airport's PV panels, led the company to report a drop in its energy consumption for 2019 when compared to 2018, despite an increase of 7.4 per cent in pas- senger numbers. Lighting upgrades at MIA expected to lead to significant drops in energy consumption FOR the third year running, Lidl Malta has been certified as a Top Employer by the Top Employers Institute, which recognises human resources (HR) excellence following a rigorous validation process. In addition to being the only Maltese company certified Top Employer 2021, the Com- pany has also been included in the Top Employers Europe. In a statement, Lidl manage- ment said 2020 had been a very tough year for both employees and employers. "is is why this year we are particular- ly proud to have, once again, managed to obtain the Top Employers Award. Tough as it was, during 2020 the Com- pany continued to invest in its Human Resource Capital and, not only did we manage to guarantee a safe employment for all our staff members, but we also continued to help our employees grow," the manage- ment said. "As a Company, we will keep on striving to improve our HR processes and to further improve our work force by re- cruiting the best talent and in- vesting in our amazing team, which today is made up of over 370 passionate individu- als." Lidl Malta awarded Top Employer recognition

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