Gibraltar’s gambling commissioner, Andrew Lyman, has expressed his confusion over the territory having been placed on the Financial Action Task Force’s (or FATF) grey list because he believes the territory has no “fundamental systemic anti-money laundering or terrorist financing weaknesses”.
The FATF grey list is comprised of jurisdictions that are increasingly under monitoring, and last week Malta was removed whilst Gibraltar was added. Under the eyes of monitoring body Moneyval, Gibraltar has been handed what Lyman called “the shortest action plan for any grey-listed jurisdiction”, which consisted of Gibraltar is on the grey list for one year and then re-evaluated.
Andrew Lyman was confident that the jurisdiction is likely to be removed once the year is up, saying, “We have to prove out that our regime is robust, he said. “Something we must accept we did not manage to achieve in the current round. We must assault the summit again. To achieve this, it will be necessary to continue our supervisory program as well as to bring forward some onsite visits which may not have been anticipated until a later date.”
“What we will not do is artificially adapt our standards to accommodate enforcement cases. That is not the Gibraltar way. I do not believe for one moment that the FATF is asking us to do that.”
“I do not see the objective as imposing more sanctions per se, but proving out the overall effectiveness of our regime and imposing sanctions where necessary and in a proportionate manner.”
