Lists Of High-Risk Countries Remain Important

The objective indicator for high-risk countries in the Implementing Decree for the 2018 Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Prevention) Act has been withdrawn. This means that a transaction involving a country on the European Commission's list of high-risk third countries no longer needs to be reported automatically to the Financial Intelligence Unit in cases where that was previously required. The high-risk list does continue to be relevant, however, for the subjective indicators. When assessing whether a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorism financing, account must be taken of the factors listed in Annexes II and III to the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (4AMLD). It follows from Annex III that there is a higher risk of money laundering or terrorism financing if a transaction involves a country without effective AML/CFT systems.

Besides the European Commission's high-risk country list, there are a number of other country lists that can be taken into account by institutions that are subject to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Prevention) Act (the "Wwft")when drawing up a risk assessment within the framework of the Wwft and filling in the subjective indicator.

One example is the European Commission's list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. That list contributes to on-going efforts to prevent tax avoidance and promote good governance principles such as tax transparency, fair taxation, or international standards against tax base erosion and profit shifting. It was most recently updated on 10 October 2019. There are currently nine names on the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions: American Samoa, Belize, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu. The European Comission notes that this "taxation" list may sometimes overlap with its high-risk countries list, but that the lists have different objectives, criteria, and adoption procedures. The two lists are intended to complement one another in the sense that they provide markets with double protection...