Banking Confidentiality 'Worth Fighting For' Says Caribbean Legal Expert

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

26 September 2003

At a recent seminar held in the Bahamas, one of the Caribbean's foremost experts on the legal aspects of money laundering argued that the notion of bank confidentiality was a cause still "worth fighting for" reports the Nassau Guardian.

One of the more worrying aspects of recent initiatives by organisations like the OECD and the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) according to Dr Rosemarie B. Antoine, a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, was the way in which the definition of money laundering and financial crime was constantly being expanded.

"There is no contention to the idea that money launderers should be brought to justice," Dr Antoine told the seminar, on bank confidentiality in offshore finance, "but what I question is the way in which the scope of money laundering is constantly broadening."

"None of us would want to encourage unlawful acts or support crime but this is not sufficient to prejudice the principle of confidentiality," argued Dr Antoine, adding that confidentiality was a legitimate principle "worth fighting for".

Dr Antoine, author of a doctoral thesis entitled 'Legal Issues in Offshore Finance' contends that much of the problem stems from misconceptions about the offshore world and the idea that bank confidentiality is somehow "evil and corrupt". She argues that the OECD should be focusing more attention on the larger economies, citing "clear evidence coming from the onshore countries themselves that the biggest money launderers are not here, but are in fact in New York, London and Russia."

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