The 56th Plenary Meeting of the MONEYVAL Committee was held on 2–6 July in Strasbourg.
The Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) is a permanent monitoring body of the Council of Europe entrusted with the task of assessing compliance with the principal international standards to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism and the effectiveness of their implementation, as well as with the task of making recommendations to national authorities in respect of necessary improvements to their systems. Through a dynamic process of mutual evaluations, peer review and regular follow-up of its reports, MONEYVAL aims to improve the capacities of national authorities to fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism more effectively. MONEYVAL is the European regional Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The Principality was represented at the meeting by an entirely new delegation comprising Philippe Boisbouvier, Technical Advisor and Interim Director of SICCFIN, Jean-Marc Gualandi, Technical Advisor (MONEYVAL and GRECO expert), and Louis Danty (MONEYVAL expert). The team’s objectives included preparing for Monaco’s fifth evaluation round, which is set to take place in late 2019 or even early 2020.
During the Plenary Meeting, numerous contacts were made or renewed with members of the Committee’s Bureau and Secretariat, as well as representatives from the many delegations.
In addition to the various debates on the evaluations of different countries, the Monegasque delegation was also able to attend several presentations on the following topics:
- Lessons learnt from the first nine MONEYVAL mutual evaluations in the fifth round (presentations by members of the Secretariat, the FATF, the Eurasia Group, evaluation team members, representatives of evaluated countries and external consultants);
- “Breaking the anonymity of virtual currencies”: presentation by David Parody (Gibraltar);
- “Guidance on identifying, assessing and understanding the risk of terrorist financing in financial centres”: presentation by Richard Walker (Guernsey). This guide was produced with contributions from institutions and countries that took part in the workshop held in Monaco on 9 and 10 April 2018 with support from Jersey and Guernsey;
- “The 5th AML/CFT Directive by the European Union”: presentation by David Schwander from the European Commission.
During the Plenary Meeting, the Principality’s representatives were also able to hold productive discussions with the Chairman and Executive Secretary of the MONEYVAL Committee (in the photo, from left to right, Matthias Kloth, Executive Secretary, Jean-Marc Gualandi, Daniel Telesklaf, Chairman, Philippe Bousbouvier and Louis Danty).
