In 2016, there were 26 cases of domestic violence reported in Monaco, according to the Minister of Health and Social Affairs.
As International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women approaches Saturday, Monaco’s Association of Assistance to Victims of Criminal Offenses has launched a website – Avip-Monaco.org.
AVIP – L’Association d’Aide aux Victimes d’Infractions set up in 2014 – offers guidelines and assistance in dealing with the judicial authorities to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and criminal offences (assault, theft, verbal abuse, physical injuries, children who are victims of racketeering …) in Monaco.
The website is in French, but the helpline– 116 919 – will be able to take calls in English.
There is another Monaco website that offers aid to victims of domestic violence, MonacoSaysNoToViolence.org (NonAuxViolencesAMonaco.org). The English and French site, to serve both communities, is overseen by Vibeke Thomsen, founder of She Can He Can, which organises International Day of the Girl.
“Often women in these cases find themselves isolated, living in Monaco, and without the means to leave,” Vibeke told Monaco Life. “These websites can provide some light, and in English.”
Vibeke Thomsen, Founder of SheCanHeCan , with Project Manager Kasey Robinson at “Violence in couples: Why don’t women leave?”, at the Auditorium of the Lycée Technique et Hôtelier.
“Violence in couples: Why don’t women leave?” is the subject of a free talk on Thursday, November 23, at the Auditorium of the Lycée Technique et Hôtelier. The government-supported event will be led by Dr Marie-France Hirigoyen, a psychiatrist specialised in psychological violence and author of many books on the subject, including “Stalking the Soul: Emotional Abuse and the Erosion of Identity”.
The event starts at 6 pm and is to help promote the International Day of Stop Domestic Violence on Saturday, November 25. In addition, on Saturday three buildings in the Principality – the Palace, the Conseil National and Odeon Tower – will light up in orange, the colour selected by the United Nation’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign to symbolise a brighter future without violence.
Monaco residents are also encouraged to go orange on November 25, and share photos on social media tagging #lutteviolencemonaco and #orangetheworld.
Andy Jack, Covington & Burling LLP Partner and Co-Chair Clean Energy and Climate Industry Group. Photo: CleanEquity Monaco
ML: Can you tell us about your background and would you say you were socially aware growing up?
AJ: I was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised mostly in the Washington, DC area, I’ve been politically aware and was politically involved in my younger days. I went to college at George Washington University and majored in International Affairs.
I was interested potentially in joining the Foreign Service or the Intelligence Community but initially got into law school and became a corporate and securities transactional lawyer. Pretty much my entire career has been spent at Covington & Burling.
ML: You introduced the idea of the Clean Energy Group to Covington & Burling? AJ: In the 2006/2007 timeframe, I began representing a company called Energy Conversion Devices that had several different clean energy technologies, which included an amorphous silicon thin film solar business and a solid hydrogen storage business. The firm also had the basic patents for a nickel-metal hydride rechargeable battery, as well as a joint venture with Chevron to build batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles.
I began to take stock of all the different clients Covington had under the umbrella of clean energy, and concluded that it made sense for the firm to organise a Clean Industry Group. We started up in late 2008 and we now have about 85 of the approximately 1,000 lawyers in the firm who are devoting a fair amount of their time to working with clean energy clients within several verticals: solar, wind, biofuels, energy efficiency, energy storage and advanced vehicles.
ML: Did it take some convincing before Covington gave the green light to develop the Clean Energy Group? AJ: Not at all. Covington is a special law firm. We are highly collaborative and part of our core culture is to bring together the right lawyers from all different practice areas to help clients solve not legal problems but business problems that involve multi-disciplinary legal solutions.
At the time, a number of law firms were beginning to evolve into creating industry groups as an overlay to what had been traditional practice groups. We at Covington had organised a Life Sciences Industry Group so the Clean Energy and Climate Industry Group was the second of the firm’s industry groups, but we have proliferated industry groups since then.
ML: What was your motivation in creating the Clean Energy and Climate Industry Group? AJ: I saw at the time a number of macroeconomic factors that I thought were going to drive tremendous growth in the industry. And it’s an industry that is clearly capital intensive, regulatory and policy intensive, intellectual property intensive, international in scope and impactful on the world because it is bringing disruptive technology for positive change.
And looking at that landscape I realised that the kind of milieu, to use a cliché, is a perfect storm that lawyers and firms, like Covington, are effective at knitting together; regulatory, intellectual, public policy and legislation, dispute resolution and transactional lawyers, all within the same set of issues.
ML: How has the industry changed since Clean Energy Group was formed? AJ: I think the arc is still positive and it’s driven by global macroeconomic factors that demand efficiency and ultimately lower carbon intensity of our energy infrastructure. One of the things we’ve seen in the last two years is a shift in the industry towards a much greater commitment by major global corporations to supporting the growth of renewable energy and the growth of carbon reduction.
ML: Is this commitment a result of COP21, the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which took place in Paris? AJ: Paris was meaningful but Paris was not, I think, what caused this shift. Paris was a culmination of efforts by governments and the corporate sector to realise that the world needed to move in this direction, but really corporations are motivated by what benefits the bottom line. They recognise that the technologies that make renewable energy have come down in cost and that efficiency gains that can be generated from clean tech, obviously, reduce costs.
ML: I read a quote where you said that the industry is now being driven by a combination of economic and business factors that aren’t political, regardless of the Trump administration and its policies. AJ: Obviously we will have to see precisely what will happen, and the US is just one market. There are global political factors that are still favouring markets around the world, but I think that the US business sector, as well as state policies that are not affected by federal policy, will continue to drive this industry forward.
ML: What is a typical day for Andy Jack? AJ: I wear many hats. Within the clean energy space, we divide the work into three different categories. There’s our transactional umbrella, which includes negotiating deals, capital raising, mergers and acquisitions or collaboration agreements.
Then there is regulatory and government affairs work, which is either advising clients on how to comply with regulations or helping clients to navigate regulations, as well as how to shape new regulations or new laws.
The third category is dispute resolution work, either arbitration or litigation, which can involve commercial disputes between parties or disputes between parties and government actors.
And wearing my hats, I’m a corporate transactional lawyer when I’m lawyering, but within the Clean Energy Group, I participate in all three of the categories, and spend a lot of time trying to help our lawyers in the firm to coordinate on matters to help clients solve problems.
ML: What is the key to helping your clients solve problems? AJ: What makes it work is expertise in the law, creativity and collaboration among our colleagues here, and dedication to finding the best result for the client – understanding the nature of the client’s problem within the understanding of the industry in which they operate. It’s bringing together judgement and knowledge, in addition to legal expertise, that I think really sets us apart.
ML: And how did you become involved with CleanEquity® Monaco(CEM), and its co-founder, Mungo Park? AJ: When CleanEquity® began, Mungo Park reached out to our former colleague George Frampton, who brought this to my attention, and we decided to give it a shot.
I heard rave reviews from my colleagues who’d attended, and they all said, “Andy, you really need to go to this and see it.” So I did, during its fifth year, and immediately understood what made CleanEquity® Monaco special and how it was different from many other venture capital conferences.
One of the things that Mungo and his team do spectacularly well is that they bring together a bespoke group of truly exciting and innovative companies every year to a venue that it is certainly nice to go to, Monaco. The venue lends itself to a level of collaboration and comfort of networking that is different from something happening in New York or Silicon Valley.
The other feature that distinguishes CEM is the investors; there are many corporate strategics that tend to participate, as well as impact investors and sovereign wealth funds, and very few traditional venture capital firms.
And so the conversations that occur tend to be with companies that are seeking to commercialise through a strategic partnership arrangement, or through a strategic exit, much more so than a traditional venture capital investment with Rounds A, B, C and D and then IPO.
Strategic collaboration agreements, that are not cookie cutter but bespoke deals, are one of the things Covington does a lot and does well, and the collaboration between a disruptive technology emerging growth company and a major corporation is always a very interesting transaction. We have succeeded in representing companies that have presented at CleanEquity® Monaco, in those kinds of transactions with major corporates, and we’ve also represented major corporates and transactions with CleanEquity® Monaco.
ML: Why do we need CEM? AJ: I have not seen other conferences in a setting like this, where the quality of attendees and participants have a focus that is much more on commercialising these technologies with strategic partnerships.
In Monte Carlo with the Steering Committee of the Conference of European Rabbis, the Chief Rabbi addressed the Monaco Jewish Community at a historic dinner. Photo: Facebook: Chief Rabbi Mirvis
With a Memorandum of Understanding signed in Monaco, Europe’s main rabbinical alliance has agreed to work with US heritage workers to preserve Holocaust graves across the continent, the Times of Israel reported on Wednesday, November 22.
The MoU was signed between the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) and the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.
“This agreement will mean that our two organisations can work in closer cooperation going forward,” commented CER President Chief Rabbi Goldschmidt of Moscow. The CER has already collated a database of thousands of graves and Rabbi Goldschmidt said working together with the Commission “will mean that we can achieve even more together”.
A delegation comprising of Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and the French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia met with HSH Prince Albert.
Front L-R: HE Isabelle Berro-Amadei, Ambassador of Monaco to Germany, HE Madina Jarbussynova, OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Isabelle Rosabrunetto, Director General Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. Back: Marie-Noëlle Albertini, Diplomatic Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation; Arnaud Pianta, Secretary of External Relations at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation; Alberto Andreani, Program and Capacity Building Officer at OSCE.
HE Madina Jarbussynova, OSCE Special Representative and Co-Ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, travelled to the Principality on Wednesday, November 22, for a working visit during which she presented the Monegasque authorities with the OSCE plan to strengthen the response capacities of countries affected by human trafficking.
The objective of the project, which became operational in 2016, is training based on simulations of human trafficking cases along the major routes – through fictitious scenarios inspired by real events relating to sexual or labour exploitation – by creating fictitious criminal procedure codes.
Since 2016, the Principality of Monaco has participated in this project to combat human trafficking along migratory routes through the payment of a contribution, which is due to be renewed in 2018-19, and announced at the next OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in December in Vienna.
The fight against human trafficking is a priority for both the OSCE and Monaco. The Principality is party to the main Conventions for the promotion and respect of human rights, directly or indirectly relating to trafficking in human beings, aimed at preventing, protecting, punishing and developing cooperation in this field.
Last October, a Monegasque delegation participated in the OSCE Conference on the massive displacement of refugees and migrants in the Euro-Mediterranean area. In addition, between 2010 and 2015, Monaco supported the OSCE project on the prevention of human trafficking and assistance to children without parental support in Moldova.
Patrick Antonius, WGE 2017 Guest of Honour. Photo: Facebook World Gaming Expo
Given the history of Monte Carlo and its significance in the world of gambling, World Gaming Expo has chosen to hold the first edition of its top-end event in Monaco during the first week of December.
The team has attracted many important names in the gaming industry for its three-day event that starts on December 6 at the Cafe de Paris with an invitation-only Opening Ceremony Gala and continues at the Grimaldi Forum.
Among those exhibiting are industry specialists Euro Games Technology, Betconstruct, Greentube, Advansys and Patir Design and Monacair but the guest of honour for 2017 will be Patrik Antonius, the biggest winner in the history of online poker who now lives in Monaco.
The main conference topics will illustrate how the gaming industry is adapting to radical and fast changes driven by new technology and software advances, the organisers say.
Mary Keitany, who clocked 2:17:01 in London earlier this year, now has her sights set on Paula Radcliffe’s world record of 2:15:25, will attend Friday’s IAAF Athletics Awards. Photo: Facebook IAAF
The International Athletics Associations Federation (IAAF), headquartered in Monaco, will be holding its IAAF Athletics Awards 2017 on Friday, November 24, from 7:30 pm until 10, pm at the Grimaldi Forum.
A video highlights package – each award presentation and main speeches – will be published on the IAAF YouTube channel.
More than 70 of the world’s top athletes will be in Monaco for the event. Some of the athletes expected include recently-minted world champions Mutaz Barshim, Mary Keitany Ekaterini Stefanidi, Yulimar Rojas, Elijah Manangoi, Hellen Obiri, Luvo Manyonga and Maria Lasitskene, to name but a few.
Following the IAAF Athletics Awards, the 212th IAAF Council Meeting will be held on Saturday, November 25 and Sunday, November 26. The Council Meeting will conclude with a press conference that will be streamed live on the IAAF YouTube channel.
ML: What is a typical day for Andy Jack?
