The 2 nd Enhanced Follow-up Report & Technical Compliance Re-rating of Mauritius was published on 21 October 2019 by the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) following the review by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Global Community for quality and consistency.
This report sets out Mauritius' progress in strengthening anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing measures since the 2018 assessment. Mauritius is currently either Largely Compliant or Compliant to 35 of the 40 FATF Recommendations, including the Big Six Recommendations.
This re-rating follows the timely adoption in May 2019 of the United Nations (Financial Prohibitions, Arms Embargo and Travel Ban) Sanctions Act 2019 and the Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2019.
On 10 October 2019, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Union (EU) has found Mauritius to be compliant with all commitments on tax cooperation. It is further reported that Mauritius has implemented ahead of schedule all necessary reforms to comply with EU tax good governance principles. Mauritius adopted, on 25 July 2019, its Finance Bill 2019 and on 16 August 2019 additional regulations that amended the legislation applicable to its Freeport zone and Partial Exemption regimes.
The EU Code of Conduct Group at its meeting of 13 September 2019 assessed these amendments and stated that Mauritius had met its commitments to address the deficiencies identified. Substance requirements have been introduced and the issue of lack of anti-abuse rules has been addressed by the introduction of controlled foreign company (CFC) rules broadly aligned with those of EU's anti-tax avoidance directive.