Speaker:

Matt McGuire, Advisor, The AML Shop

Natalie Ochrym, Strategic GRC Advisor, The AML Shop

Audience are encouraged to bring their own lunch.

Real estate can be a risky business in Canada, as corrupt foreign officials, money launderers and other financial criminals seek to exploit property markets to transfer and store illicit proceeds. Recent public attention to the issue, and law enforcement efforts to curb questionable property transactions in cities like Vancouver and Toronto, have made it increasingly important to understand the actors and threats in the real estate industry. This seminar examines the risks and state of play for financial crime within Canadian real estate markets, and provides guidance on compliance responses. The focus will be on Canada, but with some consideration of events in other countries.

Speaker’s Bio:

Matt McGuire

Advisor, The AML Shop

Matt is an Advisor with the AML Shop. He is an internationally recognized expert in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing. He has been assisting financial institutions to assess and reduce financial crime and related regulatory risks for fifteen years. He has served as an advisor to Canadian and foreign governments on development of their laws and financial intelligence functions, and a consultant to the UN office on Drugs and Crime. Matt's current project involve leading a large-scale regulator-ordered KYC remediation exercise at a global investment bank; the alignment of FINTECH initiatives with Canada's new anti-money laundering legislation for a big-4 bank; and an engagement by a law firm to assist with the defence of a significant administrative monetary penalty.

Matt served for five years as a member of the Department of Finance Private/Public Advisory Committee on AML/ATF and Chair of the AML Committee of CPA Canada. He is a Founder of the Seneca College Institute for Financial Crime Analysis. For four years, he was the leader of the National Anti-Money Laundering Practice and Ontario Region Investigative and Forensic Services Group at MNP LLP, and the partner in charge of proceeds of crime investigations with the Toronto Police Service.

Although management often understands business risks, it may sometimes be challenging to communicate these to the Board. In this session, we will review the evolving roles of management and the Board, and set out strategies to help senior managers convey reputational, conduct and other risks in a meaningful way.

Natalie Ochrym

Strategic GRC Advisor, The AML Shop

Natalie Ochrym has over 20 years of international law, compliance, governance and transactional experience. From 1999 to 2014, she held progressively senior roles at Sun Life Financial, an international financial services organization. These included serving as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Sun Life Asia based in Hong Kong, and as the organization's world-wide Senior Vice-President and Chief Compliance Officer from 2007 to 2014. In this capacity, she has led and advised senior business managers in respect of law, compliance and governance programs in China, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia. She has broad operational risk experience and acted as Board and governance advisor to Sun Life's Asia ventures. Most recently, she has served as General Counsel and Senior Vice-President, Human Resources and Communications, at a Canadian financial services company.

Natalie also has extensive mergers and acquisitions experience, with a particular focus on bancassurance and Asia joint ventures. Before joining Sun Life, she worked at the Toronto law firm Torys LLP, where she acted on mergers and acquisitions, public and private financings, and securitizations.