Cayman Islands Government Is Confident Of FATF Blacklist Removal

Mandy Robinson, Tax-news.com, London

12 February 2001

Last week Tax-news reported on the FATF meeting recently held in Paris to discuss the progress of the jurisdictions it had identified as non-cooperative in the global fight against money laundering. The FATF did not remove any of the 15 worst-offending jurisdictions from its blacklist but said that it welcomed the 'significant additional progress' they had made.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel for 7 of the jurisdictions that have fulfilled most of the legislative criteria demanded by the FATF. They have been requested by the organisation to submit implementation plans for the remainder of the legislation and if agreed by the FATF this will be a major step - if not the final step - closer to being removed from the blacklist.

At the time the FATF commented: 'A number of the 15 non-cooperative countries have taken impressive strides towards improving their counter- money laundering regimes [7 of the jurisdictions] have enacted most, if not all legislation needed to remedy the deficiencies identified in June 2000.' The 7 are: the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the Cook Islands, Israel, Liechtenstein, the Marshall Islands and Panama.

As one of the 7 jurisdictions the Cayman Islands government has now released an official statement in response to the news. On behalf of the government Financial Secretary, George McCarthy, stated: 'We are pleased that the FATF is recognising our actions. We want to ensure that our efforts to continually strengthen our anti-money laundering systems reflect both our position as a major international financial centre as well as FATF standards.'

The statement says that with regard to the Cayman Islands the deficiencies mentioned by the FATF were around the country's anti-money laundering regime which were rectified through legislative amendments implemented last year whereby guidelines set out in the government's Code of Practice, i.e., customer identification, internal reporting and record keeping were transposed into law.

In addition 'suspicious activity reporting' was also made mandatory under the Proceeds of Criminal Conduct Law. Also in the press release were comments made by Leader of Government Business, Kurt Tibbetts, who said: 'Last month, we had a useful meeting with FATF Americas Review Group, and provided them with a legislative timetable to address a few remaining areas of concern to them.'

He concluded: 'It is our belief that by March 2001, the regulations and laws of the Cayman Islands will meet (or in some areas exceed) both the 40 FATF recommendations and the 25 criteria adopted by the FATF in February of last year.'

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