The United Kingdom hosted the Global Financial Industry Partnership Summit 2026 in London this week, convened by HM Revenue and Customs on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement, the J5 group of HMRC, the Australian Taxation Office, the Canada Revenue Agency, the Dutch Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service and IRS Criminal Investigation in the United States. The summit worked on three priorities: strengthening operational coordination across the financial system, improving cross border information sharing, and making public private partnerships deliver measurable results against tax crime, money laundering and wider financial crime. HMRC chief executive JP Marks said financial crime constantly evolves across borders, sectors and technologies, and that the partnership model lets members see more and disrupt more than any one agency can alone. The partnership has run since 2022 and has produced joint assessments on identity crime, fintech enabled financial crime and trade based money laundering.
The European Parliament adopted its position on Thursday on the next iteration of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism for 2028 to 2034, the bloc’s main tool for helping countries hit by wildfires, floods and earthquakes. MEPs propose raising funding to 12.42 billion euros in current prices, up from the Commission’s proposed 10.68 billion, ring fenced 40 percent for civil protection, 40 percent for health emergencies and 20 percent as a flexibility reserve. The position, approved by 424 votes to 105 with 83 abstentions, also backs a dedicated aerial forest fire fighting fleet under the rescEU reserve from 2028, stockpiling of medical countermeasures, stronger crisis anticipation through vulnerability mapping and climate projections, and a legal status for volunteers. Parliament is now ready to open talks with the Council on the final law, which forms part of the 2028 to 2034 long term budget package.
Brazil’s top electoral court, the TSE, fined Meta’s Facebook 7.5 million reais, about 1.34 million dollars, for failing to fully comply with judicial orders during last month’s presidential election runoff campaign, while finding no evidence so far that the company deliberately acted to influence the outcome. The unanimous ruling on Tuesday followed a complaint from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s coalition alleging restricted distribution of its posts, inauthentic accounts, failures to identify AI generated content and asymmetries in Meta’s tools between the Lula campaign and that of right wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. The fine is built from daily penalties of 500,000 reais for October 17 to 19 and 1 million reais a day for October 20 to 25. Justice Marco Aurelio Bellizze wrote that the record contains technical failures acknowledged by Facebook itself, but no elements allowing a preliminary conclusion of deliberate action to unbalance the election, a finding that would require robust evidence through proper proceedings. Lula secured re-election over Bolsonaro in the runoff.