The Cayman Islands Lead Overseas Delegations Discussing Actions to be Removed from FATF’s Gray List

The Attorney General of Cayman, Samuel Bulgin, KC, and the Minister for Financial Services and Commerce, André Ebanks, led an overseas delegation to discuss the progress of the money laundering investigation and prosecution in the Cayman Islands.

As reported by the Ministry of Financial Services and Commerce, the Cayman Attorney General, Samuel Bulgin, KC, and the Minister for Financial Services and Commerce, André Ebanks, will lead an overseas delegation to discuss Cayman’s progress in investigating and prosecuting money laundering cases, as well as efforts to remove Cayman from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gray list.

A sub-working group of the International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG) of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) called the Americas Joint Group held its first meeting in Mexico for Cayman officials on May 3 to 5 regarding the final recommended action of the FATF for the Cayman Islands.

According to FATF, Cayman must comply with the following requirements to be removed from the gray list:

“Since February 2021, when the Cayman Islands made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and CFATF to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime, the Cayman Islands has taken steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime, including by advancing ML prosecutions into convictions and demonstrating progress on complex ML cases with a foreign predicate.

However, the Cayman Islands should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its remaining strategic deficiencies by demonstrating that they are prosecuting all types of money laundering cases in line with the jurisdiction’s risk profile and that such prosecutions are resulting in the application of dissuasive, effective, and proportionate sanctions.”

FATF added, “The FATF expresses concern that the Cayman Islands failed to complete its action plan, which expired in May 2022. The FATF strongly urges the Cayman Islands to swiftly demonstrate significant progress in completing its action plan by June 2023, or the FATF will consider next steps if there is insufficient progress.”

A report from the Joint Group will be presented to the FATF for decision at its plenary meeting in June, as described by the Ministry of Financial Services and Commerce. In June, the FATF will decide whether to remove the Cayman Island from its jurisdictions under increased monitoring or to leave it in place. The removal of the jurisdiction from the list usually occurs at the next plenary meeting, which will happen in October 2023.

As part of the Mexican meeting, Minister Ebanks will travel to London to take part in several events, such as the Cayman Island Finance’s stakeholder meeting and the Joint Ministerial Council of Overseas Territories plenary session on May 10. After that, Minister Ebanks will meet with stakeholders in Hong Kong before attending the International Trademark Association’s Annual Meeting in Singapore on May 16.

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