Abstract
Bank secrecy, money laundering, funding of terrorism and harmful tax competition are currently widely debated issues.
Hand in hand with the supposed abolition of "financial privacy" goes the search for a complex set of exception criteria, aimed at encouraging efficient cooperation and collaboration between countries. Participating in this wildly debated scenario is the following book, which aims to address the issues by looking at the real interests at play: bank secrecy and money-laundering, bank secrecy and terrorism, bank secrecy and harmful tax policies, as prescribed by the laws in some EU and Mediterranean countries, enabling these nations to take on a key strategic role within the international markets.
Published by Sistemi editoriali - Free download (68 KB)
Reviews
[...] Bank secrecy is at the heart of lively debates on present times, which are affected by economic globalisation, the growing need for safety and the urgent need to fight organised crime and terrorism. The trend towards the growth in international cooperation which aims to set up common principles and standards, questions the validity of the protection offered in many countries by bank secrecy policies. This protection, which also provides other advantages, gives rise to unfair competition. In actual fact for those countries that defend their bank secrecy policies at all costs, this is motivated by financial gain and has nothing to do with their beliefs or ethical code of conduct. The author of the book states that the automatic exchange of information and the definitive abolition of bank secrecy within the EU can only occur once Ecofin reaches an agreement with Switzerland, Liechtenstein, USA, San Marino, Andorra and Monaco with regard to exchange of information on request [...]
Executive.it - 03.01.2004
[...] Bank secrecy, in other words the banker's obligation to treat its Clients' information with the utmost confidentiality is currently without a doubt one of the hottest debates in international circles. In effect, integration processes aimed at developing common transaction practices, especially of a financial nature, the standardisation of tax policies and the development of single operational and administrative models to follow both in the private and public sectors, have for some years now been tightening their grip on longstanding principles that still stand in Europe and outside the Old Continent. What settles the issue is fairly clear. It is a matter of establishing up to what point secrecy is a good way of ensuring privacy and to what extent it actually becomes, when no room is allowed for elasticity or flexibility, a key tool in rule avoidance, unfair competition and crime, such as acts of terrorism. This book covers these core issues in a comprehensive and detailed way for the first time. Bank secrecy and its modus operandi is covered and discussed starting from its historical roots, surprising and ancient, up to modern times. Debates on the strict confidentiality applied to financial information focus on the important role these policies have in ensuring a competitive tax system on the one hand. and closing down those sources used to fund the international acts of terrorism that have taken place over the last few years on the other. The efforts of the international community are described in the central part of the book and show the OECD and the EU leading the way with their plans to find an "honourable" way out from the grip of bank secrecy; while the second half of the book offers a juridical map of bank secrecy, analysing how policies are applied in various countries. In this last part of the book there is a clear reference to the Mediterranean, where, over the centuries solid cultural and legislative traditions have taken hold based specifically on bank secrecy [...]
Fisco Oggi - 27.11.2003
[...] Albera's book at first analyses the issues related to bank secrecy, in relation to the real interests at play, and proposes an organic and international approach towards bank secrecy. In the second part however the author provides professional operators and companies with useful information on approaches to confidentiality for financial transactions in some EU and Mediterranean countries [...]
Italia Oggi - 20.11.2003
[...] The book is part of the "Treaty of European Business Law" series and illustrates issues surrounding bank secrecy which include money-laundering, terrorism and international tax competition. A dedicated chapter looks at bank secrecy within the EU, while the second half of the book analyses individual countries: Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, UK, San Marino, Switzerland, Turkey [...]
Monete e Credito - 01.01.2003