Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers - cyprius

The FATF welcomes the recent progress in policies and practices

noreply@ (jturquey) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:55:32 +0100

The FATF welcomes the recent progress in policies and practices to combat money laundering and terrorist financing in the northern part of Cyprus. However, given the existing deficiencies, the FATF calls on its members and urges all jurisdictions to advise their financial institutions to pay special attention to the ML/FT risks in transactions with financial institutions operating in the northern part of Cyprus. The FATF encourages further progress to address the deficiencies.

Source : FATF

Cyprus placed on Russian tax ‘blacklist’

noreply@ (jturquey) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:10:00 +0100

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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Convergence Reports 2007 - Cyprus

noreply@ (jturquey) — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:25:00 +0200

On 16 May 2007, the European Commission concluded that Cyprus has achieved a high degree of sustainable economic convergence with the other Member States and that it fulfils the necessary conditions to adopt the euro. On the basis of its Convergence Report, the Commission is proposing to the Council that Cyprus adopts the euro on 1 January 2008. The final decision will be taken by EU finance ministers in July, after consultation of the European Parliament, and following a discussion by the Heads of State or Government at their summit in June.

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Communication on sanctions

noreply@ (jturquey) — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 06:40:00 +0100

The Cyprius Securities and Exchange Commission communicates on sanctions stating the name of companies and the amount of the fine.
Nevertheless the keywords "laundering", AML, terrorisme are not found on the web site for the information of english-speaking investors.

See all announcements

Council of Europe’s assessment report on Cyprus’ measures and systems for AML/CFT

noreply@ (jturquey) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 09:30:00 +0200

Cyprus was subject to an evaluation by the “Moneyval” Committee of the Council of Europe for the third time between 3 and 9 April 2005.
The assessment report was adopted at the 18th Plenary Meeting of the Council of Europe’s “Moneyval” Committee held in Strasbourg between 31 January and 3 February 2006. The assessment report was based on Cyprus’s laws and regulations as well as other information and details provided by the various competent
authorities and bodies of the public and private sectors during the evaluation team’s visit.
As far as the FAFT Recs are concerned, Cyprus was assessed and rated for its level of compliance against the 49 Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”).
The ratings are based on five levels: “Compliant”, “Largely Compliant”, “Partially Compliant”, “Non Compliant” and “Non Applicable”
Cyprus complies with 17 Recs, and is largely compliant with 22 Recs.
Cyprius complies partially with 10 Recs.
Therefore, Cyprus scores 39, against Belgium’s 41, Hungary’s 39, Slovenia’s 38, Switzerland’s 32, Norway’s 31, Ireland’s 28, Sweden’s 27 and Australia’s 26. It is also very important to note that Cyprus has not registered any “Non-compliant” ratings, whereas Australia has 10 such ratings, Ireland 5, Sweden 5, Norway 4, Switzerland 3, Slovenia 2, Belgium1 and Hungary 1.

See assessment

See comment from the Central bank of Cyprius on the assessment

Report from the Group of States against Corruption

noreply@ (jturquey) — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:36:27 +0200

The Council of Europe’s anti-corruption monitoring mechanism, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has published three weeks ago its Second Round Evaluation Report on Cyprus. The report has been made public with the agreement of the Cypriot authorities.

GRECO’s Second Evaluation Round focuses on measures taken to recover the proceeds of corruption, to prevent and combat corruption in public administration and to prevent companies being used to shield corruption.

GRECO addresses a series of recommendations to Cyprus tailored to improve its capacity to combat corruption. They deal, inter alia, with police specialisation in the use of confiscation and interim measures regarding corruption proceeds, citizen’s access to information held by public authorities, the mandate of the Commissioner for Administration (Ombudsman), conflicts of interest in situations where public officials move to the private sector and sanctions applicable to legal persons convicted of corruption offences.

Measures taken by Cyprus to implement the recommendations will be assessed by GRECO in the context of a specific compliance procedure, towards the beginning of 2008.

See Report