Blacklisting by The Regulatory Authoritarians to Commonwealth Nations
Reuters reported The European Commission announced The Bahamas, Panama, Mauritius, and 9 other countries in its blacklisting, a publication that shows the countries that are posing a financial risk in relation to money-laundering and terrorism financing.
Jamaica, Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, & Zimbabwe.
Description
The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) is an organization of states and territories of the Caribbean basin which have agreed to implement common counter-measures against money laundering. The Task Force was established as the result of two key meetings convened in Aruba in and Jamaica in the early 1990s.
In November 1996, 21 members of the CFATF entered into a Memorandum of Understanding which now serves as the basis for the goals and the work of the CFATF. In this document, CFATF members agree to adopt and implement the 1988 UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances; endorse and implement the FATF Forty Recommendations and the CFATF Nineteen Recommendations; fulfill the obligations expressed in the Kingston Declaration as well as, where applicable, in the Plan of Action of the Summit of the Americas; and to adopt and implement any other measures for the prevention and control of the laundering of the proceeds of all serious crimes as defined by the laws of each Member.
Observers
Asia / Pacific Group Secretariat
Caribbean Customs and Law Enforcement Council (CCLEC)
Caribbean Development Bank (CDB)
CARICOM
Central American bank for Economic Integration (Banco Centro Americano de Integración Económica)
Commonwealth Secretariat
ECDCO
ECCB
European Commission
FATF
GAFISUD
UN Global Programme on Money Laundering (GPML)
IMF
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
Interpol
Jersey
Ofshore Group of Banking Supervisors (OGBS)
Organization of American States / Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (OAS/CICAD)
United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNDCP)
World Bank
World Customs Organisation (WCO)
former BICA president, Gowon Bowe
Bowe said: “A lot of people may not know that the French for a very long time have been instigators of tax transparency initiatives. If you look at the French banking groups that operate in The Bahamas, they have long started closing down.
“France has created laws and regulations that have made it virtually impossible for them to operate in offshore centres.
“The question is whether France and its citizens is a target market for us,” he said.
“While no blacklisting is positive, we need to focus on those markets and jurisdictions where we are still actually having a successful run of selling our financial services products.”
Turnquest Fury Over France’S ‘Disgusting’ Sudden Blacklisting
The deputy prime minister yesterday voiced his "total disgust" over France's decision to blacklist The Bahamas as he blasted the "devious" way in which it had been implemented.
#Confirming that Paris had formally notified the Minnis administration of its decision yesterday morning, K Peter Turnquest slammed its "surreptitious" decision as "an affront" to international diplomatic norms and the relationship this nation had sought to build with France.
He added that The Bahamas' inclusion on France's list of countries deemed non-cooperative in the fight against tax-related crimes stemmed from "the perception by the French authorities" that this nation "has not been responding to requests for information in a manner that is satisfactory to them".
Mr Turnquest did not say whether it was the speed or content of responses to French requests on their citizens/companies via the Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) between the two countries that had troubled Paris, other than it felt "our response was not sufficient".
#He added, though, that an inter-governmental investigation had not turned up any French tax information requests that remained outstanding or had not been dealt with, saying The Bahamas has "nothing on the record".
Mr Turnquest, though, voiced particular displeasure that The Bahamas had been deemed compliant last year with the various tax demands of the European Union (EU) and Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) - France being a member in both.
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