For years, the United States and its Treasury Department have taken a leading role in shaping anti-money laundering measures and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) in addition to supporting the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international organization that works to uphold such standards. In this, it has typically taken a dim view of any EU attempts to infringe on what it perceives as its purview. On Feb. 13, however, the European Commission proposed an addition to the EU blacklist for countries and jurisdictions that possess significant gaps in their domestic AML/CFT legal frameworks. The new list includes 23 countries, just 12 of which are high risk, according to the FATF. Of the 11 new additions, a few are sure to rankle the United States, including Saudi Arabia and four U.S. jurisdictions -- Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico....
