Gibraltar Government delighted at international recognition that Gibraltar complies with highest international standards of anti money laundering and co-operation.

Gibraltar`s anti money laundering regime and systems were vindicated in a report published on the 22nd June by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF established by the G7, is an inter-governmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of policies to combat money laundering.

The FATF report covered a total of twenty nine countries with fifteen of those viewed as non-cooperative in the fight against money laundering. Gibraltar has been classified as co-operative.

The FATF concluded that Gibraltar has `comprehensive anti-money laundering systems`.

The FATF assessments were made on the basis of twenty five criteria designed to assess the degree of non co-operation in the fight against money laundering; these criteria covered the areas of:

  • Lack of financial regulation including customer identification requirements, excessive secrecy provisions and a lack of suspicious transaction reporting systems.
  • Weaknesses iin the identification of beneficial ownership and the registration procedures of business entities.
  • Obstacles to international co-operation at both administrative and judicial levels.
  • Inadequate resources for preventing, detecting and repressing money laundering activities.
  • Anti money laundering laws, regulations and practices.

Gibraltar has not been found to be in breach of any of those criteria.

Gibraltar has always been happy to participate in international assessments of this kind as long as they were carried out on a fair and transparent basis. The FATF analysis provided the mechanism for a constructive and meaningful exchange between the Review Group of the FATF and the Gibraltar Government.

"The Gibraltar Government attaches great importance to Gibraltar being at the forefront of international co-operation in the fight against money laundering. and organised crime. This report vindicates that policy and Gibraltar`s achievements in that respect.

Money laundering and organised crime is, of course, a very different issue to that of so called "harmful tax measures", upon which a report is being prepared by the OECD. Gibraltar, in keeping with the great majority of the world`s Finance Centres has declined to give an immediate commitment to the OECD to eliminate its preferential tax regime for non residents upon which a large part of our Finance Centre is presently based. The OECD will publish next week a list of the countries which have not given such a commitment