CI still working on 63 CFATF recommendations

| 16/12/2019 | 18 Comments
Cayman News Service
Finance Minister Roy McTaggart, Premier Alden McLaughlin, FRA Director Robert Berry, Financial Services Minister Tara Rivers, Attorney General Samuel Bulgin, Acting Solicitor General Reshma Sharma, CFATF Deputy Executive Director Carlos Acosta, National Coordinator for the Anti-Money Laundering Steering Group Elisabeth Lees, Commerce Ministry Chief Officer Alan Jones, Portfolio of the Civil Service Chief Officer Gloria Mc-Field Nixon, Financial Services Ministry Chief Officer Dax Basdeo, CIMA Managing Director Cindy Scotland, and CIMA Senior Legal Counsel Angelina Partridge

(CNS): Government has just two months to address the problems identified by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force in March regarding Cayman’s vulnerability to global financial crime. Despite persistent claims that this jurisdiction is extremely well regulated and adheres to all global standards, the report found some glaring gaps, especially in areas outside the more traditional financial sector. These must be tackled to avoid Cayman being blacklisted or sanctioned in the near future.

Government has been investing significantly over the last few months in training for stakeholders, as well as establishing new regulations and creating entirely new accountable regulatory regimes for retail jewellers and property developers, among other traders who are vulnerable to financial crime but have not been covered by existing laws or regulations.

Last month Attorney General Samuel Bulgin led a delegation from the Cayman Islands to a plenary sessions of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force in Antigua. Cayman presented its first follow-up report, which had been given to CFATF in September, outlining the progress on meeting the recommendations.

Elisabeth Lees, the National Coordinator for Cayman’s Anti-Money Laundering Steering Group, also presented Cayman’s recently completed National Risk Assessment of Terrorist Financing.

The Cayman Islands was the first country in the Caribbean to assess its jurisdictional risks for terrorist financing using the methodology issued by the Financial Action Task Force in June 2019. By being one of the first jurisdictions to use this methodology, Cayman has provided a key blueprint for other jurisdictions to follow, Lees said in a release about the meeting.

Cayman must also demonstrate it has made positive and tangible progress in implementing all 63 recommendations by 21 February, when CFATF will decide whether to impose a remediation plan on the Cayman Islands and place the jurisdiction on the compliance document.

“The Cayman Islands is committed to taking proactive steps to ensure compliance with international standards,” said Lees. “All stakeholders are doing everything they can to fulfill the 63 recommended actions, and it was good to present to Plenary on the significant progress we have made. Whatever decision is made by FATF, the Cayman Islands will continue to ensure all the recommended actions are fulfilled.”


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Category: Business, Financial Services, Politics

Comments (18)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Try opening a new bank account here! Impossible, more rules and paperwork than any other country

    • Anonymous says:

      Only if you’re a resident and want it for personal use. If you live off-island, have plenty of money to deposit and the right contacts it can be done in 24 hours online.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Given all the glaring gaps, who is being held accountable for them?

  3. Anonymous says:

    The Cayman Islands WILL, REPEAT WILL enact all relevant legislation as we have to bow not only to the Motherland, but also to our neighbor to the North.

  4. Anonymous says:

    To coordinate such a massive job, one has to have significant management skills, not purely legal -technical.

    We can only hope that the person in charge of this has such skills and has brought them to the Cayman Islands for us to benefit, and they in turn has been given the clear objective to train a Caymanian to take over. Unfortunately, the current practice suggests otherwise, where we bring in people without such skills and they acquire such training at our expense, and deny opportunities to Caymanians and bad mouth those they deem competition in the process.

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    • Anonymous says:

      I think you forgot that they often acquire PR and eventually Caymanian Status in their quest to keep Caymanians out.

  5. Anonymous says:

    “All stakeholders are doing everything they can”, is absolute tosh. The CFATF report came out in March, and in traditional CIG style, they are hastily meeting on its contents in December, before the next installment is written, having implemented no real changes.

    Worse, we’ve since been embroiled in an international Venezuelan Gold interception – XXXXX. That whole industry, the primary funding mechanism for terror and corruption around the world, is still in routine operation without any checks on provenance of the gold they are dealing in.

    How do the hard-working, hoop-jumping, largely compliant Insurance and Fund Services Industry professionals feel about this inaction, and the failure of this government to apply basic Standards in Public Life to THEMSELVES, in their collective effort to fight corruption?!?

    The next CFATF checkup paper will write itself.

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  6. Anonymous says:

    “retail jewellers and property developers, among other traders who are vulnerable to financial crime”…vulnerable? Think you will find the system is vulnerable to them acting wittingly or innocently for laundering money because if the lack of controls and regulation. That’s what got CFATF excited, not concerns that they might get scammed lol. Just where do you think the demand for all those empty condos is coming from, and all the gold and jewelry?

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  7. David. S says:

    The temptation to freeze the hand is too great. Selling us out is easier than doing the right thing.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    Tell them to stick it!

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  9. Monkey with a plug says:

    Argentum/Byzantium were operating for nearly a decade without any oversight from any local authority. Oh, I forgot they had immunity by being in the SEZ, Cayman Enterprise City.
    Is it any wonder why our financial pen twiddlers are scratching their heads now? Who dreamt up this sieve like legislation anyway?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Separately, Oliver Lindsay has already plead guilty in the USA (on first round of charges) to running a pump and dump scheme where the stock promotional “marketing firm” and his match-trading “brokerage firm” were both simultaneously operating for years from the same SEZ address. You can’t make it up.

    • Anonymous says:

      Who were the lawyers, accountants, and other professionals that handled those associated account files, thinking “yup, everything looks super great over there”.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Agree 100%, I note that when CEC does it’s quarterly look how amazing we are press releases they don’t mention how many of their SEZC company founders are doing time in US Federal Prison.

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  10. Barbara Clark says:

    When will Standards In Public Life be enacted?

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