Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

The Finance Ministry in Moscow has placed Cyprus on a black list of jurisdictions deterring Russian companies from registering here and then repatriating their dividends tax-free back home.

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In this blog I analysed many “red flags” visible in public sources in Luxembourg.
Unfortunately in this financial center every issue is hushed up with the complicity of a captive press that is not independent enough to do its duty of watchdog.

With the dubious grant to the FATF whereas services critical for AML-CFT like Justice (see the report Petita Pro Nova Justitia ) or Police or Tax are unfortunately not given the relevant means for a country that boasts such a large financial sector, we can understand better the reason why things have not changed as they should have done for the sake of the center and why there is a kind of headlong flight, the grant to the FATF being the last visible stupidity as it definitely may call into question every future favourable report on Luxembourg.

Bad example, bad behaviours, negligence are actually given at a political level and professionals (bankers, auditors, regulatory body) only fit with this political tone.

This is exactly what wrote the FATF : "corruption, and poor governance arising from corrupt institutions (such as the judiciary, the police, or regulatory authorities) and/or individuals, can substantially blunt the effectiveness of an AML/CFT system" (Cf. annual report 2005-2006, paragraphs 32 and 33)

The FATF underlined in the report the “critical need to develop appropriate strategies to deal with the issue”.

Developing appropriate strategies to deal with the issue is definitely making pressure to change the burnt leaders to ensure that people will change their behaviour for the international effort to combat money laundering and terrorist financing be credible, which is no longer the case.

AML regulation is based on soft law and not on hard law, so is the banking regulation. In other words professionals take care of the regulation by stating rules. But the rules that are defined by the negotiating parties (banks in a jurisdiction, jurisdictions at an international level) are not legally binding.
The success of soft law depends actually on the parties’ good faith.

But soft law should evolve into hard law for a party especially when this party weakens the credibility of the commitments by multiplying knowingly negligence, which is a serious threat for every negotiating party.