On the 21st of October 2022, the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) issued its latest ‘High-Risk Jurisdictions subject to a Call for Action’ and ‘Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring’ documents. These documents have been uploaded on the FATF website under the section ‘Country Statements’.
The FATF is an inter-governmental policymaking body, aiming to establish international standards, and develop and promote policies to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism. To this end, the FATF identifies deficiencies within jurisdictions’ anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (“AML/CFT”) and include such jurisdictions within the abovementioned documents. These jurisdictions are classified into different categories, according to the deficiencies present and the measures addressing such deficiencies taken.
High-Risk Jurisdictions subject to a Call for Action are those jurisdictions having strategic deficiencies in their AML/CFT regimes, having failed to meaningfully address such deficiencies and are thus subject to a call for countermeasures (normally referred to as ‘black-listing’). The updates in this document relate to the following:
- The review process over Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”) has been halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, in relation to these two jurisdictions, reference should be made to the FATF statements adopted on the 21st of February 2020, since such statements remain in effect. Both are subject to the FATF’s call for countermeasures;
- Myanmar has been added to the FATF black-listing in its latest publication.
Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring are those jurisdictions having strategic deficiencies in their AML/CFT regimes, and have made a high-level political commitment together with developing an action plan with the FATF to combat those deficiencies (normally referred to as ‘grey-listing’). The updates to this document relate to the following:
- Since June 2022, the FATF has reviewed the progress made in Albania, Barbados, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Haiti, Jamaica, Jordan, Mali, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Senegal, South Sudan, Türkiye, UAE, and Uganda;
- Furthermore, Gibraltar decided to defer reporting, and thus the review issued in June 2022 might not reflect the most recent status of its AML/CFT regime;
- Following its review, the FATF now also identifies the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, and Tanzania as jurisdictions under increased monitoring.
Together with the abovementioned additions, the FATF has also published that Nicaragua and Pakistan are no longer subject to increased monitoring.
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