Pieth, Mark; Aiolfi, Gemma --- "Executive summary" [2004] ELECD 127; in Pieth, Mark; Aiolfi, Gemma (eds), "A Comparative Guide to Anti-Money Laundering" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004)

Book Title: A Comparative Guide to Anti-Money Laundering

Editor(s): Pieth, Mark; Aiolfi, Gemma

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843766735

Section Title: Executive summary

Author(s): Pieth, Mark; Aiolfi, Gemma

Number of pages: 5

Extract:

Executive summary
Mark Pieth and Gemma Aiolfi

INTRODUCTION
· The Basel Institute on Governance has conducted a comparative study
of the anti-money laundering systems in Singapore, Switzerland, USA
and the UK, each of which is an important financial centre in particular
in cross-border banking.
· The study starts out by examining the international standards, tracing
their historical and political roots and pointing out the driving forces
that have shaped this topic in recent years.
· Thereafter, the four financial centres are reviewed from their individual
economic perspectives and assessed for their domestic importance as
well as their position internationally.
· Substantive legal reviews of the current position in each country were
conducted in situ according to a set format which covered criminal and
supervisory regulations in relation to anti-money laundering as well as
mutual legal assistance and confiscation.
· In the final section of the study, the research in relation to the four coun-
tries is analysed and subjected to critique, with final conclusions round-
ing it off.


THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AGAINST MONEY
LAUNDERING
At the international level, the starting point for the development of anti-money
laundering principles was the `war on drugs', which culminated in the UN
treaty criminalizing money laundering and establishing the range of topics for
all further legal developments. The position changed dramatically in the 1990s
with the expansion of money laundering with all serious crimes as predicate
offences, including the abuse of power so that it has now become a tool in the
repatriation of assets.
...