MARK THOMAS / ALAMY News Home Secretary launches joint fraud taskforce A new taskforce to crack down on the fraud that shames our financial system in the UK has been announced by Home Secretary Theresa May. The Joint Fraud Taskforce aims to fast track intelligence sharing between banks and law enforcement to tackle crime gangs in a more coordinated way, and will create a top 10 most-wanted list of fraudsters. Member organisations will include the City of London Police, the National Crime Agency, Financial Fraud Action UK, the Bank of England, chief executives of the major banks, and data-sharing company Cifas, a notfor-profit company established to prevent fraud. May said: Fraud shames our financial system. It undermines the credibility of the economy, ruins businesses and causes untold distress to people from all walks of life. For too long, there has been too little understanding of the problem and too great a reluctance to take steps totackle it. Last month, Action Fraud the UKs national reporting centre for fraud and internet crime revealed that CEO fraud is on the increase. From July 2015 to January 2016, it received 994 reports of CEO fraud, with losses of 32m recorded in a recent report from the City of London Polices National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. A fraudster will send an email to a member of staff in a companys finance department, impersonating a director or chief executive of the firm. They request that money is transferred to a certain bank account quickly for a specific reason. Once the transaction is complete, the fraudster will normally redistribute this money into other mule accounts. Of the 32m reported lost by businesses, only 1m has been recovered by the victims. The new taskforce hopes to: identify key priorities and spot intelligence gaps and vulnerabilities; identify victims and potential victims more efficiently; find out why victims fall prey to fraud; and remove the weak links in systems and processes that fraudsters can exploit. No answers on review The government has refused to say when it will publish the long-awaited review into trading standards first promised in July last year after questions were raised in parliament. In two written questions, CTSI president Baroness Christine Crawley first asked when the review will be published and then what was causing the delay. It was stated in the competition plan in November 2015 that the review into trading standards was already complete. In answer to both questions, Baroness NevilleRolfe said: The government is still considering the issues raised during this review and will respond in due course. FCA levy to help fund Illegal Money Lending Teams The Treasury is to be given powers tofund trading standards Illegal Money Lending Teams after an amendment to the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill announced on 1 February. The bill, which has moved to Committee Stage after receiving itsHouse of Commons second reading, will also allow the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to levy funds from consumer credit firms to finance the teams. Economic secretary to the Treasury, Harriett Baldwin, said: Illegal moneylenders prey on the most vulnerable people in society, causing their victims immense misery. That is why we will act now in thebill to ensure that the Illegal Money Lending Teams have the funding they need to continue to protect consumers and prosecute loansharks. Russell Hamblin-Boone, chief executive of the Consumer Finance Association, a long-time supporter of the team, said: All firms operating in thefinancial services sector have a responsibility to protect consumers andensure the Illegal Money Lending Teams are funded long into the future. A levy is the correct way to go. CONSTANTINOSZ / SHUTTERSTOCK jewellery/watches/handbags/luggage Fake jewellery, handbags and luggage cost EU firms 3.5bn a year Businesses within the EU are losing 3.5bn (2.7bn) a year to the trade in fake jewellery, watches, handbags and luggage. Two new reports from the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), the EUs largest intellectual property agency, reveal that 13.5 per cent of jewellery and watches sales are lost because of counterfeiting, with fakes accounting for 12.7 per cent of sales of handbags and luggage. In the UK alone, the handbag and luggage manufacturing sector loses149m annually as a result of counterfeit products in the marketplace nearly 12 per cent of all sales in this sector. The UK jewellery and watches manufacturing sector loses 138m each year as a result of counterfeiting. Across the EU, sales lost to counterfeiting translate into 27,000 jobs, as legitimate manufacturers employ fewer people than they would in the absence of counterfeiting. Moreover, the total yearly loss of government revenue across the EU in terms of household income taxes, social security contributions, corporate income taxes and VAT is estimated to be 1.1bn (0.8bn). The president of OHIM, Antnio Campinos, said: The jewellery and watches sector, and the handbags and luggage sector, in the EU are overwhelmingly made up of micro-enterprises, which employ fewer than 10 people. The average number of employees per enterprise in the jewellery and watches sector is just three people. Such businesses are particularly vulnerable to the economic effects of counterfeiting. The reports are the fifth and sixth in a series of studies released by OHIM via the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights into the economic impact of counterfeiting in industrial sectors in the EU. Each report in the series focuses on a sector known to be vulnerable to counterfeiting. The sectors previously looked at include: toys and games; sports goods; clothes, shoes and accessories; and cosmetics and personal care items. New online dispute resolution platform launched New consumer protection laws aimed at making it easier for shoppers to resolve disputes with online retailers have come into force. People will now be signposted towards an online dispute resolution (ODR) service, which brings online retailers in line with the high street, and which has offered alternative dispute resolution (ADR) since October. CTSI, one of seven governmentappointed approval bodies for ADR services, has rubber-stamped 24 schemes so far. In addition, CTSI operates the European Consumer Centre, which helps British shoppers resolve disputes with European suppliers. Traders are not required to use ODR or ADR, but the potential customer relations benefits may encourage them to do so. Since ADR regulations came into force, 30 per cent of traders said they were willing to use it and 70 per cent of EU consumers were satisfied with how their complaint had been handled.