Three news to start your week: December 11
Mali and Niger simultaneously denounce double taxation agreements with France
(Africanews)
A joint statement from the military regimes in Mali and Niger announced that they were rejecting their double taxation agreements with the French government, which furthers the deterioration of their relationship with Paris.
The two Sahelian nations' governments cited "the unbalanced nature of these agreements, which cause a considerable loss of revenue for Mali and Niger" and "France's persistent hostile attitude against our States" in their statement.
According to them, the agreements will expire "within three months." The agreements address registration requirements, inheritance tax, and personal and corporate income tax.
Since the military took over in Bamako in 2020 and Niamey in 2023, Mali and Niger's relations with France have been progressively deteriorating, with this denunciation being the most recent development. A few months prior, the authorities of Burkina Faso, another Sahelian nation overrun by the military in 2022, had already criticized the tax agreement with France.
EU agrees landmark rules on artificial intelligence
(Financial Times)
EU lawmakers have agreed upon the conditions for historic legislation governing artificial intelligence, advancing the implementation of the most stringent restrictions on the technology's advancement globally.
EU commissioner Thierry Breton announced the agreement in a post on X, referring to it as historic. In his writing, he claimed that "the EU becomes the very first continent to set clear rules for the use of AI." "The AI Act is a springboard for EU start-ups and researchers to lead the global AI race—it's much more than just a rule book."
The agreement resulted from years of debate among EU parliamentarians, and member states about how to limit AI while still putting the interests of humanity at the center of the law.
FINTRAC fines CIBC $950K over AML lapses
(Compliance News)
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) stated that it had fined the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) more than 1.3 million Canadian dollars (roughly $950,000 US) for violating the Terrorist Financing Act and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) laws.
The announcement comes after a comparable action against Royal Bank of Canada made public by FINTRAC on Tuesday. In that action, RBC was fined CAD$7.5 million (roughly equivalent to US$5.5 million).
Similar to RBC, CIBC also faced criticism for neglecting to file reports on suspicious transactions in situations where it was thought that there was a reasonable suspicion of money laundering.
