MoneyVal

The aim of MoneyVal is to ensure that member states have in place effective systems to counter money laundering and terrorist financing and comply with the relevant international standards in these fields.

MoneyVal assesses its members’ compliance with all relevant international standards in the legal, financial and law enforcement sectors through a peer review process of mutual evaluations.

Jersey 2012/13

Jersey joined MoneyVal in 2012 and the first report by their investigators, issued in December 2013, identified some minor shortcomings in Jersey’s standards.

Jersey 2014

Further to the findings of the 2013 report the JFSC implemented the following measures:

1. Money Laundering (Amendment No. 7) (Jersey) Order 2014
2. Proceeds of Crime and Terrorism (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Jersey) Law 2014 (the 2014 Law)
3. Proceeds of Crime and Terrorism (Tipping Off-Exceptions)(Jersey) Regulations 2014 (the 2014 Regulations)

One of the most important enhancements is the change to the reporting of suspicious activity to a positive obligation, so that a suspicion must be reported. Under the present regime punitive action is taken retrospectively if a suspicion that was not reported proved to be criminal.

Tipping off offences have been updated to bring Jersey in line with most other jurisdictions: in line with the IMF recommendation the tipping off offence has been expanded to include all disclosures rather than just instances of tipping off that are “likely to prejudice” any investigation. Certain disclosures that are not seen as an offence are also set out under the 2014 Regulation.

The new law and Regulations also introduced a number of enhancements to the AML/CFT rules (as found in the handbook).

2015

At the end of January 2015 Jersey’s finance industry welcomed a team of evaluators from MoneyVal, a body of the Council of Europe, who are tasked with assessing member jurisdictions’ compliance with international Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of terrorism (‘AML/CFT’) standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (‘FATF’).

During the visit, which was coordinated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission (‘JFSC’), the evaluation team met with

1. the Chief Minister and
2. senior ministers and the Jersey Financial Crime Strategy Group (who advise the Chief Minister on the Island’s AML/CFT policy),
3. Representatives from the Jersey’s regulators, law enforcement and senior court officials.
4. Meetings were also held with representatives from the financial and non-financial sectors as well as their professional associations.

During its visit in January 2015, MoneyVal’ s evaluation teams focused on

1. certain of the important Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Forty Recommendations 2003 and the Nine Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing 2004,
2. Recommendations which were previously rated “non-compliant” or “partially compliant” in the previous evaluation report.
3. an assessment of the effectiveness of their implementation, based on an analysis of information provided and verified through interviews with
   1. relevant national authorities,
   2. a selective representative panel of financial institutions, of designated non-financial businesses and professions and
   3. relevant professional associations.

At the conclusion of its mission on 24 January, the MoneyVal team shared and discussed the initial findings with representatives of the Jersey authorities. A report on these findings has not yet been released in the public domain, but in accordance with MoneyVal’ s Rules of Procedure, a draft report will now be prepared for review and adoption by a MoneyVal Plenary in September 2015.

Between now and September the JFSC is already working on a number of amendments to the AML/CTF Handbook and changes to the ML Order, which are currently under consultation with Jersey’s finance industry.