Caricom Asks OECD To Postpone Black-list For Multilateral Talks

Tax-news.com

16 March 2000

Following the Caricom summit in St Kitts last weekend at which President Chirac was asked to intercede with the OECD on behalf of the 15 Caribbean member nations, many of which are likely to be included on the OECD's 'black-list' due to be published in June, an OECD delegation held scheduled talks with representatives of the group on the island, led by P J Patterson, Prime Minister of Jamaica..

The OECD was asked to postpone publication of its report, to allow multilateral discussions to take place. Up till now, the OECD has held bilateral talks with a number of individual jurisdictions, which in some cases have seemed to have successful results in that the jurisdictions have come away believing that they will not be included on the infamous list. The Caricom group dislikes the bilateral 'Star Chamber' approach of the OECD.

Prime Minister Patterson said that the OECD member nations had no right to legislate on behalf of independent jurisdictions outside their organisation.

It remains far from clear what powers the OECD will in fact be able to bring to bear on what it sees as errant jurisdictions, even if as an organisation it continues to give full support to the Financial Action Task Force, the related body which has mounted the black-list campaign. Recent reports suggested that there is internal dissension in the OECD, with many parts of the orgnaisation deeply unhappy over the highjacking of its name by one internal faction for an attack on 'unfair tax competition'.

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