On May 10, 2013, the Africa Progress Panel, chaired by former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, released its annual progress report. This year's report highlights the critical choices African policy makers have to make regarding investment in the immense natural resources on the continent. In many African countries, natural resource revenue is increasing the economic gap between the wealth and the poor and the economic growth from these revenues have not translated into improvements in health and education throughout Africa.

On April 9, 2013, the Finance Ministers of the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain notified the EU Tax Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta that they have agreed to work on a pilot multilateral exchange facility between their countries using the model FATCA intergovernmental agreement with the U.S.

This is a draft article.  The final will appear in the June 2013 issue of the IELR.

Italian Supreme Court’s Overturning of Amanda Knox’s Acquittal Gives Rise to Possible Future Extradition Request

 On March 1, 2013, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and other law enforcement officials announced that Ernst & Young LLP (“E&Y”) has admitted wrongful conduct by certain E&Y partners and employees in connection with the firm’s participation, from 1999 to 2004, in four tax shelters that were used by approximately 200 E&Y clients in an effort to defer, reduce, or eliminate tax liabilities of more than $2 billion.

On March 1, 2013, the Court of Appeal in New Zealand overturned the lower court's decisions by Judge Winkelmann and Judge Harvey who both had ordered the U.S. government to disclose evidence it has against Kim Dotcom ahead of his extradition hearing.

Kim Dotcom's counsel have indicated they will appeal to the Supreme Court to challenge a ruling that the U.S. government does not have to hand over all all its evidence in the extradition case.

31 year-old Admir Suljic was arrested in Italy immediately after his flight from Singapore landed in Milan's Malpensa airport on Thursday, February 21st. After Suljic, who is wanted by Italian authorities, boarded the plane, Singapore's Police Force informed officers from INTERPOL's Fugitive Investigative Support unit, who worked with Italian State Police to prepare for his arrival.

On February 19, 2013, The Mandiant® Intelligence Center™ released a report exposing Advanced Persistent Threat 1's (or APT1) multi-year, enterprise-scale computer espionage campaign.

    The highlights of the report include:

              On February 14, 2013, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced today that it has signed a bilateral agreement with Switzerland to facilitate the implementation of the information reporting and withholding tax provisions commonly known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

    On January 22, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed the appeal by defendant/appellant Arab Bank PLC and denied the defendant’s petition for a writ of mandamus. The court found that the sanctions order was not a reviewable collateral order. As such, the court lacked jurisdiction.