2018.01.06期 p47
Money-laundering in Canada ——Snow-washing洗钱
OTTAWA
Loose rules on private-company formation are aiding money-launderers
松懈的私人公司创建制度正在帮助洗钱者
WHEN reports surfaced in 2016 of foreign students with no known income buying homes worth millions of dollars in Vancouver, locals said it was yet more evidence that foreigners were inflating prices in Canada’s dearest property market. It was also evidence of a homegrown problem. The students turned out to be figureheads for anonymous firms whose ultimate owners cannot be identified because the information is not legally required by the land registry. Canadian authorities are concerned about the abuses caused by such opacity.The property market may well be attracting foreign criminals and corrupt officials seeking to launder dirty money,notes David Eby, the attorney-general of British Columbia.
2016年，当一则关于无已知收入的外国学生们在温哥华购买价值百万美元的房子的报道出现的时候，当局称，尚有更多的证据表明外国人正在加拿大最贵的房地产市场膨胀着房价。这样同样是国内（加拿大）问题的证据。其实，这些学生们只是匿名公司的一个摆设而已，这些匿名公司的最终所有者是无法被查到的，因为地政局无权查询他们的信息。加拿大当局担心这种不透明会引起泛滥。不列颠哥伦比亚司法部部长DavidEby说，房地产市场可能会吸引外国犯罪分子和腐败官员设法洗黑钱。
Other countries have taken steps to make sure that anonymous ownership of firms does not help criminals. In 2014 G20 leaders agreed to make the ultimate ownership of legal entities more transparent. Britain, for example, set up a searchable,public database of beneficial or ultimate owners of all firms, limited-liability partnerships and Societas Europaea (firms based and regulated in the European Union as a whole). All EU states will eventually have to do the same under a 2015 anti-money-laundering directive.
其他国家也正在采取措施来确保这些匿名公司的所有权不会帮助犯罪分子（“不会被犯罪分子所利用”这样翻译更合适一点）。2014年，20国领导人达成共识， 让这些法人实体的最终所有者更为透明化。例如，英国对所有公司的最终所有者、受益者、有限责任公司合作者以及欧洲公司（所有那些以欧盟为基础和受欧盟管理的公司）建立了可查询的共用数据库。在2015年反洗钱指示下，欧盟的所有国家最终都必须采取同样的措施。
With not a palm tree in sight and a reputation for being boringly well-run, Canada is an unlikely haven for crooks and tax avoiders. But it has long had a reputation as a place to snow-wash money. In 2009 the national police force estimated that up to C$15bn ($12bn) was being laundered in the country each year (anestimated annual $2trn is laundered globally).One attraction is that establishing a company is so easy — tougher identity checks are required to get a library card than to form a private firm, as Jon Allen of Transparency International Canada noted before a parliamentary committee in December.
虽然加拿大没有糟糕管理的迹象和名声（“棕榈树”象征着“成功”，本句的字面意思是：“视野里看不见糟糕管理的棕榈树”和坏名声，那么言下之意就是，看不见糟糕管理的迹象，仅本人一家之言，不知道是对是错），看似不像是骗子和避税者的天堂。但长期以来，它确是一个以洗钱著称的地方。2009年，据国家警方估算，这个国家每年的洗钱数量高达120亿美元（估算全球每年洗钱数量为2万亿美元）。吸引力之一就是在这里建立公司是非常容易的——加拿大国际透明组织的Jon Allen在12月的议会委员会之前指出：在这里，办理一张借书证所需要的身份验证都比开一家私人公司要困难。
Not all corporate ownership is opaque. Publicly traded firms are subject to securities laws which require major shareholders to be disclosed.The problem lies with firms that are not listedon astock exchange.An anti-money-laundering law passed in2000 directs banks,securities dealers,life-insurance firmsandother financial entities to make “reasonable efforts” to identify the owners offirms they do business with; left tocarry the load, they do theirbest to collect information on all counterparties, but it is not enough.
并非所有的公司所有制都是不透明的。公开交易公司受到证券法支配，这些公司要求主要的股东必须开诚布公。问题在于没有被列入证券交易所的公司。2000年通过的反洗钱法指挥(或“管理”)着银行、证券经纪人、人寿保险公司以及其他财务实体以达到更为合理有效地去鉴定这些做生意的公司所有者。要求他们负起责任, 尽他们最大努力去收集所有同行业公司的信息, 但这还是不够的。
Areview in 2016 of Canada by the Financial Action Task Force, anintergovernmental body set up in 1989 tocombat money-laundering,concluded that only a fraction ofthe country’s 2.5m legal entities“hadaccuracy checks performedwith respect tobeneficial ownership”.It also catalogued a wide range
of ways in which Canadian front companies were being used to purchase assets,
including property, or to move money in and out of the country“to
layer and legitimise unexplained sources of income”.
2016年, 由加拿大金融行动专责委员会(1989年政府间成立的一个反洗钱组织)得出结论: “国家的二百五十万合法组织中, 只有一小部分实际获利者进行了精确的检查”, (后面这一句有点难…)
Political
and legal authoritiesincreasingly recognise a need for change,but progress has beenglacial. When financeministers from the federal government, the ten provinces and threeterritories met to discuss the issue last month, theywent
no further than agreeing to encourage firms to keep a record of theirultimate owners, ready to give to authorities if they request it. Part of theproblem is thatjurisdiction is split betweennational and sub-national governments, with only a tenth of Canada’s companiesincorporated at the national level. Any agreement to change the rules has toreconcile differences in how provinces definebeneficial ownership and collect such information.
政治和法律部门逐渐意识到需要改革, 但是进展却十分缓慢. 上个月,当来自联邦政府和十个省以及三个地区的财政部长们一起讨论这件事情的时候, 他们也仅仅只是达成一致去鼓励这些公司保留最终所有者们的记录,以便官方查询. 其中的一些问题在于, 司法权被国家以及下属的当地政府所分裂,
Canada’sexisting money-laundering and terrorist-financing legislation also contains agaping hole: lawyers are not covered, because they successfully argued in courtthat turning over such information violated solicitor-client privilege. OneOntario lawyer bragged to a police undercover agent in 2002 that this victorymeant it was 20 times safer for a lawyer to launder money in Canada than in theUnited States—not the sort of contrast that the Great White North relishes.
