Crystal Concise: March 2023

Our regular snapshot from the Crystal team of some of the highlights and points of note for finance and corporate comms pros from around the jurisdictions this past month...

• Jersey: Following the publication of a gender pay gap report the previous month which found that men in Jersey earned on average 12% more than women, there were ministerial calls for a move towards mandatory gender pay gap reporting for local businesses.

• South Africa: The country pushed ahead with promises to have its beneficial ownership register up and running rapidly, following swiftly after an FATF decision to heighten monitoring of the country's AML defences.

• Luxembourg: A survey published this month suggested that more than half of financial services employees in the jurisdiction were thinking about switching jobs, underlining persistent recruitment challenges in the sector.

• ESG: The ASA published updated guidelines around terminology used when promoting or talking about environmental claims.

• Internal Comms: Leaked WhatsApp messages in UK politics threw into question the security of the app as an internal comms tool.

• Social Media: The UK government joined a number of countries' civil services, including France, Netherlands and Norway, to ban the use of TikTok on staff devices amidst security concerns.

• AI: Italy became the first country in the West to ban AI tool ChatGPT, based on data protection concerns.