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INTRODUCTION
In all its many manifestations, economic crime remains a threat to civilisation.
As the appalling events of llth September have reminded us, it is not the only threat. Nor the most obvious. But a serious threat it surely is. And a threat that is here to stay. Combating economic crime will be a continuing task for public authorities everywhere.
The experience of the CIS countries, in particular, is a constant reminder of the misery that results when national authorities cannot or do not contain the threat effectively.
In many countries, the authorities have contained the threat. But none of us is as successful as we should be. Recoveries of the proceeds of crime are generally minuscule.
Within the spectrum of economic crimes, tax evasion has a special importance in terms of scale of proceeds and number of persons involved. And tax evasion, money laundering and economic crime of all kinds are symbiotically linked in a social ecology which is shamefully prevalent.
It makes good sense, therefore, to look at these subjects together and to consider in particular:
what progress the world has made so far in tackling them
what problems remain, and
what the world needs to do next.
PROGRESS SO FAR
Without doubt, the world has made much progress in these areas in recent years. The big ideas have included:
international standards in areas such as financial regulation and combating money laundering
international cooperation based on such standards
external assessments of individual countries
transparency, coupled with respect for human rights and privacy
suspicion reporting
cooperation between national tax authorities
cooperation with offshore centres.
Taking these in turn, the major countries, and others too, now cooperate extensively in the regulation of financial institutions with the help of the familiar Basel Committee, IOSCO and IS Standards.
Many countries now cooperate in combating money laundering. The FATF has successfully promulgated what is in effect a world standard, the Forty Recommendations, with an emphasis on cooperation, transparency and suspicion reporting.
The major countries now have a framework for cooperation with offshore centres, based on assessment against international standards by IMF teams.
And national tax authorities have at least begun to cooperate, mainly through the OECD, on the collection and allocation of tax revenues.
In the course of...