From March 20 to 23, 2024, the Chair of Economic Criminal Law, Compliance, and Digitalization held the “Anti-Money Laundering” intensive course for the third time.

The legitimate financial and economic cycle is often exploited for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes. Such criminal activities can damage a company’s reputation and undermine the integrity of the entire financial center. MONEYVAL evaluates the effectiveness of its member states’ systems in combating these crimes. The “Anti-Money Laundering” intensive course provides comprehensive knowledge for the prevention and prosecution of money laundering, organized crime, and terrorist financing.

Over the course of twelve lectures, the program addressed a wide range of topics related to the phenomenon of money laundering. The course opened with Henrik Stefan, CAMS (Senior Regulatory Compliance Officer, LGT Bank AG, Vaduz), delivering a lecture on “MONEYVAL – Data & Facts.”

Next, Mag. iur. Philipp Röser (FMA Liechtenstein) provided insights into current international regulatory developments and the role of the Financial Market Authority.

The subsequent lecture by Dr. Elena Scherschneva, expert and business consultant in the field of AML and CTF prevention (AML-Compliance e.U., Bad Fischau-Brunn), had to be postponed. Dr. Scherschneva will address, in a separate online session, the reporting obligations in cases of “suspected money laundering, terrorist financing, or organized crime,” as well as the consequences of (non-)reporting suspicious activities, illustrated with real-life case examples.

The second day focused on “Criminal Liability Risks in Case of Violations of the Due Diligence Act.” Mag. iur. Daniel Gehri (FMA Liechtenstein) spoke about the administrative criminal provisions of the SPG, with a focus on distinguishing between intent and negligence.

Dr. iur. Michael Jehle (Princely Court of Liechtenstein) followed with remarks on the judicial criminal provisions of the SPG, before concluding the day together with Mag. iur. Wolfgang Walch (Economic Crime Unit, Liechtenstein National Police) with a “tour d’horizon” from a practitioner’s perspective.

The third day began with a lecture on the criminal provisions concerning organized crime and terrorist financing, presented by course leader Prof. Dr. Konstantina Papathanasiou, LL.M. (Chair of Economic Criminal Law, Compliance, and Digitalization, University of Liechtenstein).

Next came a lecture on criminal liability risks under § 165 of the Criminal Code, delivered by Prof. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Severin Glaser, Professor of Financial and Economic Criminal Law at the Institute of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, and Criminology at the University of Innsbruck. Following this, Univ.-Ass. Dr. Jonas Divjak (Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, University of Vienna; from April 1, Postdoctoral Researcher at the local Chair of Economic Criminal Law, Compliance, and Digitalization) presented on the topic of “Data Protection Criminal Law.”

The fourth and final day of the intensive course focused on “Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism in the Digital Age.” Lic. oec. publ. Sébastien Caduff (épiphany AG) began with a lecture on “Cryptocurrency as a Challenge and Opportunity.”

In the current issue (1/2024) of the Journal of Corporate Law (GesRZ), the article “The Influence of Sustainability Aspects on the Decision-Making of the Management Body of a Public Limited Company” by Marco Lettenbichler was published. The article examines whether the management board of a public limited company is required to take sustainability aspects (in particular the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) into account when making decisions.

After an introduction to the topic, the paper first examines the normative guidelines for managing a public limited company. Special attention is given to the related conflicts of objectives between integrating sustainability aspects and maximizing profits. In addition to the existing corporate governance models of the shareholder value approach and the stakeholder value approach, the new concept of “New Corporate Governance” is also discussed. The paper then investigates whether it is feasible under corporate law to autonomously incorporate the consideration of sustainability aspects. In particular, it highlights the possibilities and limitations of making sustainability considerations mandatory within the company’s corporate purpose. On the other hand, provisions in the articles of association, the implementation of a “Say on Climate,” and any approval requirements from the supervisory board are excluded due to conflicts with mandatory corporate law provisions.

Finally, the article analyzes the indirect factors influencing the management board’s decisions. These are mechanisms that do not directly affect governance structures but exert influence through indirect channels such as executive compensation, reporting obligations, or public opinion. The indirect influences of modern remuneration policies, ESG reporting obligations, and customer interest in a better world are likely to be the greatest factors affecting management board actions in the future. Mandatory legal requirements and autonomous incorporation are only available or feasible to a limited extent.

The library of the University of Liechtenstein has joined SLSP. This means that its holdings will be searchable in swisscovery from 18 March 2024.

The University Library holds around 28,000 books, journals and non-books as well as 68,000 e-books, which will now be added to swisscovery. By participating in SLSP Courier, the library is making its physical holdings available to a wider audience in Switzerland. Jürgen Küssow, Vice Director and Head of Network Services at SLSP, is delighted about the accession: "With the library of the University of Liechtenstein, SLSP has gained its first international partner and is thus strengthening cross-border cooperation."

The integration and migration project of the University of Liechtenstein Library from Aleph to Alma started in September 2023 under the leadership of SLSP. In various project phases, the data was deduplicated, the migration was prepared, tested and carried out, the services were set up in swisscovery and the employees of the University of Liechtenstein Library were trained on Alma and swisscovery.

Ekaterina Vardanyan, Head of the University Library, sees this project as a milestone in the library's development: "Joining swisscovery and cooperating with the Swiss university libraries via the SLSP will enable us to significantly expand the media offering, modernize the most important business areas and thus increase the library's innovative strength."

With the completion of the project, swisscovery will grow to a total of approx. 23 million title recordings and approx. 41 million copies.

SLSP is a non-profit organization based in Zurich, whose sponsors are 15 universities and libraries in Switzerland. Founded in 2017, SLSP has been operating a national library platform for 500 academic libraries in Switzerland with the product swisscovery since 7 December 2020. The SLSP also includes the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries (CSAL), which centrally purchases licences for electronic resources for Swiss academic libraries and negotiates open access contracts.

Search directly in swisscovery and use other services such as SLSP Courier to have books sent to a library near you.

Based on the agreement between the government and the Swiss Federal Council on the promotion of science-based innovation of 26 January 2021 and the corresponding commitment credit approved by Parliament, the Swiss Innosuisse innovation promotion program is also available to companies and research institutions in Liechtenstein.

In this context, the University of Liechtenstein, together with the company HELGA.works in St. Gallen, successfully submitted a funding application to Innosuisse. Following approval of the project funding by the government, the support agreement was signed on March 12, 2024 by the Head of the Office of Economic Affairs, Katja Gey, the Rector of the University of Liechtenstein, Christian Frommelt, and the implementation partner Vincenzo Neidhardt, CEO of Helga AG.

Securing income for artists with artificial intelligence methods

The music industry is facing a growing challenge: unpaid royalties for copyrights are expected to soon reach almost 8 billion dollars annually, compared to the current 2.5 billion dollars. With a groundbreaking initiative to combat this unfair distribution, the Eastern Swiss start-up HELGA.works is launching an Innosuisse project together with the Department of Information Systems & Computer Science at the University of Liechtenstein.

The aim of the project is to help artists receive the royalties to which they are entitled. The main challenge is to identify the rightful recipients despite insufficient data quality. By using state-of-the-art machine learning models, such as graph neural networks, which can deal with incomplete and inaccurate data, the aim is to create a solution that is not only innovative, but also remains simple and interpretable. The aim is to develop a prediction service that estimates the risk and amount of unpaid royalties. The potential product solution has already attracted significant interest from investors and the industry, including renowned music publishers and artists. In addition to creating economic value, the proposed innovative solution will help artists, especially niche artists, to receive their rightful remuneration. The project thus also contributes to cultural and musical diversity.

The Office of Economic Affairs and the National Contact Point for Research and Innovation in the Department of Economic Affairs are available to provide further information (www.avw.llv.li; contact: Frank Heeb, T +423 236 67 45; Frank.Heeb@llv.li).