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