Opening remarks by Lisa Kelaart-Courtney, Director, Prevention and Compliance Division, ADB Office of Anticorruption and Integrity, at the Beneficial Ownership Seminar and Exchange of Information on Request Assessor Training, 3 July 2023
Distinguished participants, colleagues, ladies, and gentlemen. Welcome to the Assessor Training on Beneficial Ownership and Exchange of Information on Request.
My name is Lisa Kelaart-Courtney and I am Director of the Prevention and Compliance Division of the Office of Anticorruption and Integrity of the Asian Development Bank. On behalf of the Asian Development Bank, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this Training.
I am very thankful to the 33 officials from 18 participating jurisdictions from Asia, the Pacific, and beyond gathered here today, and to our resource persons from ADB and Global Forum Secretariat for sharing their expertise and experiences.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Zayda Manatta, the Head of the Global Forum Secretariat, and her team for co-hosting this important and timely meeting.
Since the inception of our Regional Technical Assistance Initiative on Enhancing Transparency Tax Transparency of ADB Developing Member Countries, our partnership with the Global Forum Secretariat has been extremely successful and fruitful.
On the topic of beneficial ownership alone, we have co-hosted 5 regional events, conducted several joint missions, and co-developed an e-learning module.
This Beneficial Ownership Seminar and Exchange of Information on Request Assessor Training is an important milestone in the global fight against financial illicit flows.
It is increasingly clear that the battle against corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion in the next few decades will be largely be about beneficial ownership. This seminar is also very timely as governments and tax administrations all over the world are faced with amplified pressure on their budgets.
In the aftermath of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, governments across the world need to mobilize revenue in order to meet the many challenges facing their people and economies. Illicit financial flows are estimated at $1 trillion dollars a year. For developing economies, this often represents hundreds of millions of dollars in lost or foregone tax revenues that could have otherwise been collected and used to overcome the current health and energy crisis.
Beneficial ownership of legal entities and the ability of use of shell companies to obfuscate beneficial ownership to being tools for money laundering, tax evasion, or even as straight forward (once detected) as conflicts of interest creating inter-party relationships that others may wish cloaked to assist in the facilitation of the illicit flow of funds.
As an international financial institution with a mandate to pursue sustainable development, ADB promotes beneficial ownership transparency and the international integrity standards through its roles as a financier, as a provider of knowledge, and as a convener of partnerships.
First and foremost, we want to lead by example and ensure that we have taken all reasonable efforts to verify who the beneficial owners are of the projects we finance. My team is responsible for providing reasonable assurance that ADB’s financing does not facilitate tax secrecy, tax evasion, or tax fraud. As part of ADB’s risk-based approach, we must ascertain the ultimate beneficial owners of our clients and satisfy themselves regarding the transparency of the clients’ shareholding structure, the business reasons for any complex ownership structure, and the use of offshore jurisdictions in the shareholding structure. While performing our task, we take into account the ratings of relevant jurisdictions provided by lead organizations, including the Global Forum, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and the United Nations.
At the same time, ADB remains firmly committed to advance the beneficial ownership transparency agenda and provide technical assistance to ensure that all our members, and particularly our developing members, are in a position to fully implement the international integrity standards.
ADB has robust capacity building programs to support our members in adopting the AML/CFT standards of FATF, and international tax transparency and exchange of information standards of the Global Forum. In one of our most successful technical assistance projects, Mongolia undertook prompt reforms that saw them removed from the FATF “grey list” within the shortest period on record.
Finally, ADB uses its convening power to promote partnerships aimed at strengthening international integrity standards to combat tax evasion, fraud, corruption, and financial crimes. At its annual meeting in May 2021, ADB launched the Asia Pacific Tax Hub. One of the objectives of this hub is to promote strong participation among our developing members in global tax cooperation initiatives. This includes increasing the level of beneficial ownership transparency and exchange of information needed to fight tax evasion and other illicit financial flows. To make meaningful, coordinated progress in this area, the hub will work closely with global standard setters like the OECD and the Global Forum as well as with regional tax administration associations and bilateral donors.
In closing, let me again thank you all for joining this Beneficial Ownership Seminar and Exchange of Information on Request Assessor Training. The next 5 days are all about the tools and mechanisms to ensure that beneficial ownership requirements and international integrity standards are effectively implemented, sharing best practices, building systems, and strengthening national frameworks.
Thank you very much for your active participation, and I wish you all a very productive meeting. And on behalf of ADB, we look forward to hosting and working closely with you during this week.
Speaker
