EU’s money laundering white list questioned

A lawyer specialising in money laundering and financial service regulation
this week questioned the validity of the EU’s ‘white list’ of countries where
money laundering controls are considered the same as EU member states.

Stephen Platt,
BakerPlatt
Group barrister and chairman, questioned why countries such as Russia,
Argentina and Mexico could justifiably make the list and noted Australia and
Canada, also on the list, were less than 25% compliant by the standards set by
the
Financial
Action TaskForce (FATF) into money laundering controls, according to
Tax-News.com.

Platt described as ‘bewildering’ that white list countries were regared as
having a higher level of control of money laundering compared with leading
offshore finance centres, including the British Crown Dependencies.

‘Having researched the background to some of the countries included, we
question why countries that fall behind recognised international standards are
on the list, whilst finance centres such as Jersey, the Bahamas and the Cayman
are not,’ said Platt, who advises gand regulators on the implementation of
effective regulatory and anti-money laundering rules.

Further reading:

Tax haven ‘white list’ excludes UK centres

Read
the Tax-News.com story