The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) plans to introduce mandatory supervision of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) starting from September 1, 2023. The upcoming VASP investigation is expected to increase the country’s compliance with Western sanctions against Russia and Belarus.
Fraud News
News from World
A federal court convicted a Florida man of health care fraud and conspiracy. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Steven King, 45, was the chief compliance officer for a pharmaceutical company that fraudulently billed Medicare for more than $50 million to distribute supplies that Medicare beneficiaries did not need or want.
News from Turkey
Following the suicide of Süleyman Aydın, the owner of SAS Holding, and the murder of Sibel Koçan, an investigation was launched into the allegation that thousands of people were defrauded, and an operation was launched in 11 provinces centered in Istanbul to capture 71 suspects. 50 suspects were caught during the raids. Detention orders were issued for 71 suspects regarding the investigation in which the inconsistencies in the company accounts in question, large money transfers between managers as reflected in MASAK reports, and the missing 145 million liras in the ‘Pyramid System’ were revealed.
Protection of Personal Data
News from World
Spotify, which has more than 527 million monthly active users, including 210 million paying subscribers, was fined for failing to provide detailed information about all requested personal data and international data transfers. The company was fined 5 million Euros for violating the data access rights of users in European Union member countries.
News from Turkey
According to the announcement published on the website of the Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK), a cyber attack was carried out on Trabzonspor’s servers on May 19, and the attack was detected on the same day. While Trabzonspor and its subsidiaries were affected by the attack, the number of people and records affected by the breach could not be determined because the files kept on the encrypted servers could not be accessed.
Competition Agenda
News from World
The European Union (EU) accused the technology company Google of violating competition rules in its digital advertising activities. The EU fined Google over 8 billion Euros as a result of various competition investigations in the past.
News from Turkey
Competition Authority, Owner Bilgi Teknolojileri Pazarlama ve Ticaret A.Ş. He announced that the oral defense meeting of the investigation carried out against him will be held on July 12. In the written statement made by the Competition Authority, it was stated that the oral defense stage has been reached in the investigation carried out to determine whether Article 6 of Law No. 4054 has been violated by preventing data transfer in terms of the online platform services of the company sahibinden.com and other means.