News
FATF’s Focus on Asset Forfeitures Could Challenge Some Nations
By Brian Monroe
printAn intergovernmental group's revised expectations of how countries should seize looted assets may prove difficult to meet, and could lower the mutual evaluation scores nations receive for their anti-money laundering controls. Earlier this month, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) outlined in guidance how jurisdictions should best assist one another with asset forfeitures, calling for the implementation of formal and informal mutual legal assistance arrangements and the creation of specialized units to expedite responses to intergovernmental inquiries. How willingly nations cooperate with one another will be an important factor in how FATF evaluates their anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorism...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
Follow the headlines and you'll find an all too common story: the political winds shift, a leader is deposed and a fortune in dirty money is uncovered in a warren of offshore accounts. But why did no one stop the plundering sooner?
The Supreme Court nears a ruling on the long-running Arab Bank case, FATF spares Afghanistan from its blacklist, and more, in this week's news roundup.
Proposals by California's top prosecutor to strengthen the state's anti-money laundering laws are expected to find broad support among lawmakers.
Attorneys for a Florida couple accused of selling black-market medical devices argued before the Supreme Court Wednesday that the government's power to freeze the assets of defendants should be further limited.
A new grading system by an intergovernmental group on how effectively jurisdictions fight money laundering and terrorist financing is likely to compel global financial institutions to rethink their geographic risk-rankings.
U.S. officials will soon ask an influential intergovernmental group to call on its members to relax laws preventing bank affiliates from sharing data on suspected financial crimes, say sources.
The world's premier financial crime watchdog declined Friday to suspend Turkey's membership and disclosed how its assessors will begin evaluating jurisdictions on the efficacy with which they fight illicit finance.
The Financial Action Task Force is set to implement a two-tiered grading system for future mutual evaluations as part of an effort to better score the efficacy of anti-money laundering regimes.
The U.S. government's landmark case against HSBC Holdings Plc for knowingly turning a blind eye to financial crime is seemingly fated to end much as it began: complex and messy.
The Financial Action Task Force threatened Friday to suspend Turkey's membership if the country fails to pass counterterrorist financing laws ahead of a Feb. 22 meeting by the group.
An intergovernmental group that evaluates how countries fight money laundering and terrorist financing will change how it grades compliance with its standards beginning next year, say individuals familiar with discussions.
The U.S. Treasury Department will issue guidance expanding on pending regulations in an effort to plug compliance gaps ahead of the Financial Action Task Force's next review of the United States.
Intergovernmental evaluations of how nations fight money laundering and terrorist financing often do not accurately reflect whether those efforts are effective, the International Monetary Fund said in a report Wednesday.
Eleven jurisdictions have yet to make "significant progress" on improving their anti-money laundering regimes despite having had six months to more than a year to do so, an intergovernmental watchdog said Monday.
U.S. banks will face additional freeze orders and banking data requests from federal prosecutors when a new asset-freezing measure adopted Wednesday by U.S. lawmakers takes effect next year, say analysts.
Inconsistent international forfeiture laws continue to hamper global asset forfeitures, according to Stefan D. Cassella, chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering section of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland.
A report by an intergovernmental watchdog highlighting the anti-money laundering weaknesses of more than two dozen countries is prompting non-bank financial institutions to drop customers and avoid risky markets.
Governments should bolster their asset forfeiture laws and look closely at the cross-border movement of bearer negotiable instruments, an intergovernmental group that advises on anti-money laundering efforts said last week.
The United States is "very weak" in retrieving assets lost abroad to criminals, and should make better use of international treaties designed to aid asset recovery, according to the head of a company that helps investigate lost funds.
Information on tax evasion and asset recovery cases will likely top data-sharing requests filed by foreign governments with the United States over the next three to five years, say analysts.