On October 15-17, 2008, the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) held its first XX Plenary in Rio Janeiro, Brazil. About 200 representatives from 34 FATF members, 8 regional AML/CFT organizations, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Office of Drug Control (UNOCD), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank, the Egmont Group, the Offshore Group of Banking Supervisors and other international organizations attended the Plenary.
The People s Bank of China (PBC) led a delegation to the Plenary on behalf of the Chinese government.
Brazil, currently holding the FATF-XX presidency, briefed the Plenary on the work priorities during its tenure including: to improve AML/CFT standards including evaluation methods based on the third round of mutual evaluation in accordance with FATF objectives in 2008-2012; to strengthen cooperation with regional AML organizations, the UN and international financial organizations to urge jurisdictions with deficiencies in their national AML/CFT systems to make improvements; to exercise vigilance over the new threats brought about by new money laundering techniques (methods) to the international financial system; to improve typology research and push forward the global money laundering risk assessment plan and national money laundering risk audit plan; to submit an annual report to the Ministers Meeting of FATF members, and to strengthen the guidance and supervision of the Ministers Meeting on FATF; to continue to consolidate the cooperation with regional AML organizations, Egmont Group and the private sector.
The mandates of FATF working groups were revised accordingly.
Based on progress made by some jurisdictions in AML/CFT, the Plenary passed a statement about Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, S o Tom and Pr ncipe and the northern part of Cyprus, which welcomed the progress made by Turkmenistan and northern part of Cyprus, reaffirmed the threats posed by S o Tom and Pr ncipe to the international financial system, called on FATF members and all jurisdictions to strengthen preventive measures to protect their financial sectors from risks to the integrity of the international financial system emanating from Iran and Uzbekistan.
The Plenary agreed to issue new guidance on implementation of financial provisions of UNSCR 1803 (2008) drafted by the Working Group on Terrorist Financing and Money Laundering (WGTM), the third guidance after the guidance on implementation of UN Resolution on the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in June 2007 and the guidance on implementation of UN Resolution 1737 (2006).
The Plenary agreed to issue the guidance for lawyers and notaries and for casinos on the risk-based approach to combat money laundering and terrorist financing drafted by the Working Group on Evaluation and Implementation (WGEI). As such, the FATF has issued guidance for all designated non-financial sectors on the risk-based AML/CFT approach. At the same time, the Plenary reviewed and passed WGEI s recommendations on revision of Mutual Evaluation Methods, which proposed revisions to chapters on follow-up procedure, effectiveness and assessment as well as crime of conspiracy and etc.
The Plenary discussed and adopted the mutual evaluation reports on Japan and Mexico, and asked them to submit follow-up reports to the Plenary on items assessed as non-compliance and partial compliance . After deliberation, the Plenary agreed to admit the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as the FATF s newest Observer organization, turned down the application for observer from the European Investment Bank.
The Plenary discussed the follow-up/updated reports on Iceland, Australia, Italy, Switzerland, China, Greece and Portugal. China s AML/CFT efforts following its membership in July 2007 were unanimously affirmed and applauded by FATF members, and the Plenary agreed that China could submit follow-up reports to the Plenary as per the normal procedure and report to the Plenary on its work progress starting from June 2009 on an annual basis.
During the Plenary, experts from the UN, the Asian Development Bank, the IMF, Belgium, Norway and Holland held a meeting with officials from the AML Bureau of the PBC, and exchanged views and experiences on improving laws and regulations governing money laundering and establishing a mechanism that enforces the UN resolution on freezing assets suspected of terrorist financing.
On October 13 and 14, the WGRM, WGEI, the Working Group on Typologies (WGTYP) and the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) held working group meetings prior to the Plenary.
