St Kitts And Nevis Reviews Financial Services Legislation
by Amanda Banks, for LawAndTax-News.com, London
25 July 2008

As it prepares to undergo scrutiny of its financial services legislation, St. Kitts and Nevis is continuing to strengthen its legislative defences to prevent the jurisdiction being used for money laundering activities and the financing of terrorist activities, according to its government.

"Any deficiencies that we detect as we prepare ourselves for the upcoming assessment by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) in September, 2008, my government will take measures to correct them and ensure that the Federation's legal, law enforcement and regulatory regimes are in compliance with international standards," Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Denzil L. Douglas declared via the communications service of the Prime Minster's Office.

"We have been to Parliament on several occasions to improve existing legislation so that we can seriously make a contribution in the proper regulation of our financial services sector and prevent the use of our jurisdiction in the committal of white-collar crimes," Douglas added.

In preparation for the assessment, four task force members - two legal experts, one law enforcement and a financial expert have been trained to be mutual evaluation examiners by the CFATF.

"It is important to my government that the Federation is equipped to effectively implement a proper AML/CFT legal and regulatory regime, as well as to determine what systems need to be improved in order to obtain 'compliant' ratings from Examiners when our AML/CFT framework is measured against the FATF's 40 plus 9 recommendations," Douglas observed.

St. Kitts and Nevis Financial Secretary, Janet Harris currently serves as Deputy Chair of the CFATF and will assume the Chair at the 28th CFATF Plenary and Ministerial Meeting from 17th to 21st November, 2008.

The Financial Secretary chairs the Local Financial Action Task Force. The Task Force is currently reviewing the Federation's Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Financing of Terrorism legal and regulatory framework in an effort to detect and address any deficiencies. All deficiencies in the legal framework were presented at the recent sittings of the St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly.

A comprehensive report in our Intelligence Report series examining offshore confidentiality is available in the Lowtax Library at http://www.lowtaxlibrary.com/asp/subs_reports.asp and a description of the report can be seen at http://www.lowtaxlibrary.com/asp/description_report1.asp