Isle of Man Urged to Take Further Steps to Counter Money Laundering

Richard Marley

November 30, 2022

The Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering committee has again called for an extension in the internal control requirements for AML and CFT in the Isle of Man.

The Council of Europe’s committee of experts on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing, MONEYVAL published its follow-up report on the Isle of Man.

As per the mutual evaluation report adopted in December 2016, The Isle of Man was placed in MONEYVAL’s “enhanced follow-up” procedure as a result of the 2016 report.

The follow-up report examines the progress made by the Isle of Man in addressing some remaining technical compliance deficiencies identified in the December 2016 report.

In its previous follow-up report (September 2020), MONEYVAL considered the Isle of Man to comply or mostly comply with 39 out of 40 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, which are international standards for tackling money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

According to MONEYVAL, the Isle of Man retained moderate deficiencies implementing just one recommendation – Recommendation 23 – with which the Isle of Man was only “partially compliant” on the basis that:

– There was no specific requirement in the AntiMoney Laundering (AML)/Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF) or Gambling Codes in relation to having an independent audit function

– There was no specific requirement in the AML/CFT Code for groups to have groupwide programmes against money laundering or terrorist financing

The Isle of Man subsequently asked MONEYVAL for a re-rating of its technical compliance with Recommendation 23.

In today’s report, MONEYVAL states that whilst steps have been taken to improve compliance with Recommendation 23, gaps remain. Therefore, the Isle of Man remains “partially compliant” with Recommendation 23.

The Isle of Man remains under MONEYVAL’s enhanced follow-up procedure and is expected to report back in three years’ time.