BRUSSELS, June 5 (Reuters) - Fifteen European Union states including financial centres Germany and France have been given a final warning for failing to update their rules aimed at choking off finance for terrorist activities, the bloc's executive said.
"If there is no satisfactory reply within two months, the Commission may refer the matter to the European Court of Justice," the European Commission said in a statement on Thursday.
EU countries were obliged to introduce an updated version of the bloc's anti-moneylaundering rules by December last year.
The warnings were sent to Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Slovakia.
The rules apply to the financial sector, lawyers, notaries, accountants, real estate agents, casinos, trusts and company service providers.
The scope also extends to all providers of goods when payments are made in cash over 15,000 euros ($23,140).
Under the rules, a company would have to identify and verify who they are dealing with, report suspicions of moneylaundering or terrorist financing to the public authorities, and ensure personnel are properly trained.
http://www.finance.cz/zpravy/finance/171673-update-1-eu-targets-15-states-over-moneylaundering-rules/
Showing posts with label Luxembourg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luxembourg. Show all posts
on Saturday, May 5, 2012
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on Thursday, April 12, 2012
The Alpine principality will start helping other nations claw back missing tax revenues.
Timing is everything these days, especially for a tax haven like Liechtenstein. A day before finance ministers of the Group of 20 were due to meet to discuss new guidelines to stop tax evasion, one of the world’s favored destinations for such shenanigans said it would start helping other nations claw back their missing tax revenues.
The tiny Alpine principality said Thursday that it was dropping its distinction between tax evasion and tax fraud, an issue that has frustrated tax authorities in the United States and Germany because Liechtenstein previously insisted on only handing over data in cases of outright tax fraud.
It now says it has already begun “concrete talks” with other nations and was offering bilateral tax agreements in cases of tax fraud and tax evasion. "We are aware of our responsibility as part of a globally integrated economic area,” Prime Minister Otmar Hasler said. “With today's declaration, we are making our contribution to a joint solution that will make an effective enforcement of foreign tax claims possible.”
International organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have been lobbying for more transparency from tax havens like Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Luxembourg for many years now. But the crackdown has now reached a critical stage as governments around the world seek to tighten financial regulations to prevent another repeat of the credit crunch while desperately trying find new tax revenues.
France and Germany have already asked the OECD to prepare information on tax havens for the G-20 meeting in London on April 2. On Tuesday, France’s La Tribune reported that the OECD was adding Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria, Singapore and Hong Kong to its list of noncooperative tax centers, which already included Liechtenstein.
Stephen Platt, chairman of the BakerPlatt Group and specialist in anti-money-laundering, said that Liechtenstein’s move was “essential” to its ongoing survival. "It is simply untenable within this climate and this environment for centers to continue not to criminalize the laundering of the proceeds of foreign tax evasion," he said, adding that in the long term such rules were “unsustainable and not good for your reputation.”
But the international backlash against tax havens by governments and the G-20 may also be too indiscriminate, he said, because of the “very real and distinguishing” differences between them. While Liechtenstein is only now amending its laws on tax evasion, other offshore financial centers like Jersey and Guernsey already did so a decade ago; Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Singapore have not.
Meanwhile there is the other elephant in the room: banking secrecy. Liechtenstein seems keen to keep its rules in that area unchanged. "Our bank secrecy has always served to ensure the legitimate protection of the privacy of the citizen, which we will continue to retain,” Hasler said Thursday.
Platt believes that the G-20 nations are looking at tax evasion and banking secrecy as two related but distinctly important issues. “The criminalization of laundering of tax evasion is equally as important, [but] tax havens that do not address bank secrecy need to see it addressed,” he said.
Source: Forbes
Timing is everything these days, especially for a tax haven like Liechtenstein. A day before finance ministers of the Group of 20 were due to meet to discuss new guidelines to stop tax evasion, one of the world’s favored destinations for such shenanigans said it would start helping other nations claw back their missing tax revenues.
The tiny Alpine principality said Thursday that it was dropping its distinction between tax evasion and tax fraud, an issue that has frustrated tax authorities in the United States and Germany because Liechtenstein previously insisted on only handing over data in cases of outright tax fraud.
It now says it has already begun “concrete talks” with other nations and was offering bilateral tax agreements in cases of tax fraud and tax evasion. "We are aware of our responsibility as part of a globally integrated economic area,” Prime Minister Otmar Hasler said. “With today's declaration, we are making our contribution to a joint solution that will make an effective enforcement of foreign tax claims possible.”
International organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have been lobbying for more transparency from tax havens like Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Luxembourg for many years now. But the crackdown has now reached a critical stage as governments around the world seek to tighten financial regulations to prevent another repeat of the credit crunch while desperately trying find new tax revenues.
France and Germany have already asked the OECD to prepare information on tax havens for the G-20 meeting in London on April 2. On Tuesday, France’s La Tribune reported that the OECD was adding Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria, Singapore and Hong Kong to its list of noncooperative tax centers, which already included Liechtenstein.
Stephen Platt, chairman of the BakerPlatt Group and specialist in anti-money-laundering, said that Liechtenstein’s move was “essential” to its ongoing survival. "It is simply untenable within this climate and this environment for centers to continue not to criminalize the laundering of the proceeds of foreign tax evasion," he said, adding that in the long term such rules were “unsustainable and not good for your reputation.”
But the international backlash against tax havens by governments and the G-20 may also be too indiscriminate, he said, because of the “very real and distinguishing” differences between them. While Liechtenstein is only now amending its laws on tax evasion, other offshore financial centers like Jersey and Guernsey already did so a decade ago; Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Singapore have not.
Meanwhile there is the other elephant in the room: banking secrecy. Liechtenstein seems keen to keep its rules in that area unchanged. "Our bank secrecy has always served to ensure the legitimate protection of the privacy of the citizen, which we will continue to retain,” Hasler said Thursday.
Platt believes that the G-20 nations are looking at tax evasion and banking secrecy as two related but distinctly important issues. “The criminalization of laundering of tax evasion is equally as important, [but] tax havens that do not address bank secrecy need to see it addressed,” he said.
Source: Forbes
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on Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Luxembourg's Minister for the Budget, Luc Frieden, yesterday warned a conference of Austrian, Swiss and Luxembourgish financiers that he fears being black-listed by countries considering them as tax havens.
Finance Ministers Josef Pröll from Austria and Hans-Rudolf Merz from Switzerland met their Luxembourg counterpart in a mini-summit ahead of the forthcoming G20 meeting.
The three countries have vowed to continue their practice of banking secrecy despite being viewed by others of being tax havens, which the three deny. However, they stressed that The banking secrecy should not be abused in order to hide illegal activities, and they vowed to continue the fight against money laundering, financing of terrorism and international tax fraud.
Source: Station
Finance Ministers Josef Pröll from Austria and Hans-Rudolf Merz from Switzerland met their Luxembourg counterpart in a mini-summit ahead of the forthcoming G20 meeting.
The three countries have vowed to continue their practice of banking secrecy despite being viewed by others of being tax havens, which the three deny. However, they stressed that The banking secrecy should not be abused in order to hide illegal activities, and they vowed to continue the fight against money laundering, financing of terrorism and international tax fraud.
Source: Station
on Sunday, February 26, 2012
Investigators looking into the collapse of Iceland’s financial system are re-examining allegations that its banks may have been involved in money laundering.
Documents relating to the allegations are believed to have been circulated last week between officials in Iceland, Denmark and the Serious Fraud Office in London.
A wide-ranging inquiry into the collapse of Iceland’s banks has started to unravel a complicated network of unconventional loan agreements between the banks and high-flying entrepreneurs.
Kaupthing, Iceland’s biggest bank, which attracted British savers’ money through the Kaupthing Edge savings account, has fiercely denied allegations it was involved in money laundering in the past.
The bank sued a Danish newspaper at the High Court in London in 2006 over allegations related to holding companies in Luxembourg set up for a Russian oligarch. The claims were settled out of court.
It is understood that the money laundering claims are not central to the core investigations into Iceland’s collapse but are being reviewed as part of the broader inquiry.
Each of the three big banks — Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir — loaned large sums to their biggest shareholders on favourable terms.
It has emerged that at the time of Glitnir’s collapse, the 15 biggest creditors were all connected to FL Group, its largest shareholder, which was controlled by Jon Asgeir Johannesson, the boss of collapsed Icelandic retail group Baugur.
Meanwhile, allegations of market manipulation in Icelandic companies have ensnared British entrepreneurs such as Kevin Stanford, the boss of the All Saints fashion chain, and the property and mining tycoons Moises and Mendi Gertner.
Stanford said he had not been contacted by investigators about the Icelandic collapse. A Gertner spokesman said loan deals offering to buy shares in Kaupthing were pushed as part of broader dealings with the bank.
“There was an understanding that if these shares were taken up then they would be in a beneficial position to secure funding from Kaup-thing in the future,” he said.
Source: Times Online
Documents relating to the allegations are believed to have been circulated last week between officials in Iceland, Denmark and the Serious Fraud Office in London.
A wide-ranging inquiry into the collapse of Iceland’s banks has started to unravel a complicated network of unconventional loan agreements between the banks and high-flying entrepreneurs.
Kaupthing, Iceland’s biggest bank, which attracted British savers’ money through the Kaupthing Edge savings account, has fiercely denied allegations it was involved in money laundering in the past.
The bank sued a Danish newspaper at the High Court in London in 2006 over allegations related to holding companies in Luxembourg set up for a Russian oligarch. The claims were settled out of court.
It is understood that the money laundering claims are not central to the core investigations into Iceland’s collapse but are being reviewed as part of the broader inquiry.
Each of the three big banks — Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir — loaned large sums to their biggest shareholders on favourable terms.
It has emerged that at the time of Glitnir’s collapse, the 15 biggest creditors were all connected to FL Group, its largest shareholder, which was controlled by Jon Asgeir Johannesson, the boss of collapsed Icelandic retail group Baugur.
Meanwhile, allegations of market manipulation in Icelandic companies have ensnared British entrepreneurs such as Kevin Stanford, the boss of the All Saints fashion chain, and the property and mining tycoons Moises and Mendi Gertner.
Stanford said he had not been contacted by investigators about the Icelandic collapse. A Gertner spokesman said loan deals offering to buy shares in Kaupthing were pushed as part of broader dealings with the bank.
“There was an understanding that if these shares were taken up then they would be in a beneficial position to secure funding from Kaup-thing in the future,” he said.
Source: Times Online
on Monday, April 2, 2007
Three Italians arrested in connection with a European Union kickback probe now face additional charges of money laundering, judicial officials in Brussels said on Thursday.
Jos Colpin, the spokesman of Brussels public prosecutor Berta Bernardo-Mendez, said the three suspects - who include an EC official and the assistant of an MEP - were accused of money laundering as well as corruption, fraud, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breaching public tender laws.
Commission functionary Giancarlo Ciotti, 46, European parliamentary assistant Sergio Tricarico, 39, and businessman Angelo Troiano, 60, were arrested on Wednesday in Brussels.
Colpin said the three, who are all resident in Brussels, were suspected of defrauding European taxpayers of several million euros over a period going back more than ten years.
The probe centres on tenders for European Commission offices abroad and contracts for supplying these buildings with security systems.
Ciotti is suspected of pocketing bribes from real estate and security companies in return for the assignment of contracts to rent, equip and secure EC buildings, in India and Albania in particular.
“It was a matter of not following the rules of public tenders which made it possible to favour certain firms which were obliged to pay bribes to those who organised the fraud,” Colpin said after the arrests.
He said it appeared to be a “very big case of corruption” and that Italy was the suspected “epicentre”.
EC offices in Brussels and banks, homes and private offices in Italy, France and Luxembourg were searched on Tuesday in an operation involving more than 150 police officers.
The investigation began in July 2004 when the EC received a complaint from an unsuccessful bidder in a tender procedure.
The commission immediately notified its anti-fraud agency OLAF.
Tricarico is an assistant to MEP Gianni Rivera, a former soccer star turned politician. Prior to that, Tricarico worked for Franco Marini, who is now Italy’s Senate speaker.
Rivera said on Wednesday said he was “stunned” by Tricarico’s arrest and had “never noticed anything suspicious” about his behaviour.
Troiano is a real estate agent and owner of several private security installation and supply firms.
Media reports, meanwhile, spotlighted alleged anomalies associated with the EC building in Tirana.
Used to house EC delegations, the building is situated on the outskirts of the Albanian capital and is owned by a private company, one of whose partners is an Italian businessman based in Potenza.
The media reported that the building cost the EC 40-50,000 euros a month to rent - much more than the market price for properties in the centre of the capital.
The EC budget for commission delegations’ buildings abroad stands at around 56 million euros for 2007.
The Italian foreign ministry said on Thursday that it was “looking into the judicial position” of the three arrested Italians and would “ensure they are guaranteed all their defence rights”.
Judicial sources close to the probe said it could widen and that more arrests were possible.
http://www.italymag.co.uk/2007/news-from-italy/current-affairs/italians-in-eu-graft-probe-face-money-laundering-charges/
Jos Colpin, the spokesman of Brussels public prosecutor Berta Bernardo-Mendez, said the three suspects - who include an EC official and the assistant of an MEP - were accused of money laundering as well as corruption, fraud, criminal conspiracy, forgery and breaching public tender laws.
Commission functionary Giancarlo Ciotti, 46, European parliamentary assistant Sergio Tricarico, 39, and businessman Angelo Troiano, 60, were arrested on Wednesday in Brussels.
Colpin said the three, who are all resident in Brussels, were suspected of defrauding European taxpayers of several million euros over a period going back more than ten years.
The probe centres on tenders for European Commission offices abroad and contracts for supplying these buildings with security systems.
Ciotti is suspected of pocketing bribes from real estate and security companies in return for the assignment of contracts to rent, equip and secure EC buildings, in India and Albania in particular.
“It was a matter of not following the rules of public tenders which made it possible to favour certain firms which were obliged to pay bribes to those who organised the fraud,” Colpin said after the arrests.
He said it appeared to be a “very big case of corruption” and that Italy was the suspected “epicentre”.
EC offices in Brussels and banks, homes and private offices in Italy, France and Luxembourg were searched on Tuesday in an operation involving more than 150 police officers.
The investigation began in July 2004 when the EC received a complaint from an unsuccessful bidder in a tender procedure.
The commission immediately notified its anti-fraud agency OLAF.
Tricarico is an assistant to MEP Gianni Rivera, a former soccer star turned politician. Prior to that, Tricarico worked for Franco Marini, who is now Italy’s Senate speaker.
Rivera said on Wednesday said he was “stunned” by Tricarico’s arrest and had “never noticed anything suspicious” about his behaviour.
Troiano is a real estate agent and owner of several private security installation and supply firms.
Media reports, meanwhile, spotlighted alleged anomalies associated with the EC building in Tirana.
Used to house EC delegations, the building is situated on the outskirts of the Albanian capital and is owned by a private company, one of whose partners is an Italian businessman based in Potenza.
The media reported that the building cost the EC 40-50,000 euros a month to rent - much more than the market price for properties in the centre of the capital.
The EC budget for commission delegations’ buildings abroad stands at around 56 million euros for 2007.
The Italian foreign ministry said on Thursday that it was “looking into the judicial position” of the three arrested Italians and would “ensure they are guaranteed all their defence rights”.
Judicial sources close to the probe said it could widen and that more arrests were possible.
http://www.italymag.co.uk/2007/news-from-italy/current-affairs/italians-in-eu-graft-probe-face-money-laundering-charges/
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