The plan is spelled out in a four-page document on the government’s website.
Although an EU member in most areas – and thus obliged to comply with EU measures such as beneficial ownership, anti-money-laundering and countering the financing of terrorism – and "among the first jurisdictions, as from 1989, to regulated the providers of fiduciary services", it is seeking to drive home to critics of international financial centres the seriousness of its intention of being a transparent and properly-regulated jurisdiction.
It comes after there has been a focus on tax evasion, tax avoidance and money laundering by UK politicians.
Key elements of the new plan include:
- Updating Gibraltar’s existing risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing as part of its preparations for implementing the 2012 FATF (Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body) recommendations
- Transpose the EU’s fourth Anti-Money-Laundering Directive, when it is adopted
- Ensure successful implementation of an amendment to Gibraltar’s Companies Act known as the Companies, Partnerships and Trusts (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act of 2012, which are aimed at providing for better record-keeping and strengthening the accounting and record-keeping requirements for partnerships, companies and trusts
- Undergo "phase two" of a programme by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Global Forum to boost transparency and information exchange measures, phase one of which has already been passed
- Consider the benefits of setting up a central register of beneficial ownership, to be made available to law enforcement and "competent authorities", and commit to implementing it if it is deemed likely to be more effective than the current regime, assuming that this would also be implemented by G8 member countries, the Crown Dependencies and fellow British Overseas Territories
- Continue to ensure that Gibraltar’s anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework reflects the latest EU legislation
- Ensure that the Companies Act and Gibraltar’s AML/CFT legislation obliges all companies to explicitly know who owns and controls them – notwithstanding the directors’ existing fiduciary responsibilities; this would be done by requiring companies to obtain and hold adequate, accurate and current information on beneficial ownership
To see the new action plan, click here.
