CIMA Helps Evaluate BVI's AML Regime

by Amanda Banks, for LawAndTax-News.com, London

23 May 2008

The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) was part of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) team that examined the anti-money laundering and terrorist-financing regime of the British Virgin Islands in February, it has emerged.

CIMA announced in its annual report for 2007 that Legal Counsel, Sandra Edun-Watler served as legal examiner in the delegation of law enforcement, financial and legal examiners that conducted the Third Round Mutual Evaluation in the BVI. The team, which included officials from Barbados, the Netherlands and Trinidad & Tobago, undertook the on-site inspection from the 10th to the 23rd of February.

Mrs Edun-Watler’s role in the evaluation process was to review the BVI’s legal systems: the scope of the criminal offence of money laundering and terrorist financing, along with confiscation and seizing of proceeds of money laundering and terrorist financing, and the scope of international cooperation, including mutual legal assistance and extradition.

The Cayman Islands underwent the same process last November in its Third Round Mutual Evaluation, under the CFATF initiative.

“There are 30 member countries in the CFATF and once every three years each jurisdiction undergoes a peer review through this examination procedure. It was very enlightening for me to see how the overall process worked and to observe how each member of the delegation contributed,” noted Mrs Edun-Watler.

She added: “Being involved in this process has given me a clearer insight into what the CFATF is looking for when it undertakes these evaluations.”

The CFATF is an organisation of states of the Caribbean which have agreed to implement common counter-measures to address the problem of money laundering. It was established as a result of meetings convened in Aruba in May 1990 and Jamaica in November 1992.

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