Jewellers urged to comply with financial regulations

August 23, 2010 6:55 AM

COLE BAY--Jewellers, one of the biggest business sectors in St. Maarten, apparently have not yet realised the importance for the continuation of their business and for the economy that they are knowledgeable about and fully compliant with the regulations for financial transactions.

They have shown very little interest up to now in the information sessions of the Financial Intelligence Unit MOT, St. Maarten division.

MOT Antilles Director Kenneth Dambruck told the press Friday that the information session organised especially for the jewellers this week had been poorly attended.

Only two jewellers were present to learn more about the laws against money-laundering and terrorism-financing and their obligations to report certain transactions to MOT. "Their attendance was very, very minimal and that is putting it positively."

As of May 15, jewellery stores, car dealers, real estate agents, notaries and several other non-financial-based businesses are obligated by law to report to the centre for unusual transactions MOT transactions of legally specified amounts.

For jewellers, every transaction involving NAf. 20,000 or more must by law be reported to MOT, or the business runs the risk of being caught up in legal troubles should it be found that a client was involved in money-laundering or the financing of terrorism. Reporting transactions as prescribed by law indemnifies the reporter.

MOT Antilles (in the future, of St. Maarten and Curaçao) will be evaluated by the international monitoring agency for unusual transactions Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in November.

The Netherlands Antilles will receive grades for compliance: for having the laws in place and for proper reporting of transactions. Should a failing grade be given, the result will be the country/new countries potentially being labelled as centres for money launderers and terrorism financiers.

Based on the evaluation, FATF might advise potential (foreign) investors to stay away and existing investors "to pack up and leave," Dambruck said. For these reasons, it is important that all new reporters become compliant with the laws ahead of the evaluation.

FATF representatives will select some of the new reporters at random to visit during their trip here in November.

The separate sessions this week for new reporting entities, including the jewellery sector, were organised at the request of the jewellers. They had requested a session more focused on information for their sector prior to the law going into effect, after a general gathering of all new reporters in February.

Dambruck said the sessions also allowed for the unit to find out from the new reporters how the application of the law was in each new area, and where it might have overreached or could have been worded differently.

Amendments to the law on unusual transaction-reporting are pending and should be put before the Parliaments of Countries St. Maarten and Curaçao for approval in November. One change to the law will be the inclusion of extra monitoring of "Politically Exposed Persons" or PEPs. This covers politicians, immediate family, close friends and associates.

Dambruck joked that in St. Maarten "everyone is a PEP" because everyone has easy access to elected/political persons. At present, the extra monitoring for such double-checking or asking for additional information when a PEP is involved in a transaction only applies to foreign/visiting PEPs.

He explained that on the international scene it had been found that politicians were sometimes at the heart of some of the worst fraud schemes.

(Source: The Daily Herald)

21 August, 2010