FATF Members Likely To Miss Own Deadline, Says Report

by Robert Lee, Tax-News.com, London

04 June 2002

A report in the Economist last week suggested that, despite a great deal of high profile law-making, many Financial Action Task Force and G7 member countries are unlikely to meet the Task Force's end of June deadline for the implementation of eight anti-money laundering recommendations designed to cut off terrorist financing.

On Thursday, the business paper revealed that: 'People leading the effort to cut off funding say that there is already evidence that terrorists have been disrupted by increased financial scrutiny. On the other hand, according to a UN official, there is no sign that the flow of funds to al-Qaeda from charities in Saudi Arabia has ceased.'

The Economist reported that most countries - including G7 members such as America itself - do not yet obey the FATF's recommendations, proposed last Autumn in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

As a result, the newspaper suggests, the multilateral body is unlikely to go ahead with its previous plans to impose sanctions on those countries which fail to conform to anti-money laundering standards. It has also been argued that 'blacklisting' countries would merely serve to hinder international cooperation in the fight against terrorist financing.

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