The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (the Authority) has provided regulatory assistance to other regulators in some 400 instances over the past four years as part of its function to cooperate and exchange information with its international counterparts.
Authority Managing Director Mrs. Cindy Scotland and General Counsel Mr. Langston Sibblies highlighted this information as part of their presentation on cross-sectoral and diagonal issues at a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) Conference on Cross-Border Cooperation and Information Exchange in Washington, DC.
The conference underlined the critical importance of international cooperation and information exchange among financial sector agencies in view of the growing integration of world markets and deepened international operations of financial firms.
The achievement of an appropriate balance between the public interest in obtaining and using information and protection of civil rights, and ensuring that national laws provide the basic gateways for cooperation and information exchange were major conclusions drawn by conference participants who represented most major jurisdictions.
Commenting on the conference Mrs. Scotland remarked, "It was an opportune occasion to draw attention to the Authority's increased cooperation with other regulators worldwide, and enabled all attendees to compare notes on further enhancing information exchang e on an international level within each jurisdiction's legal framework."
The Authority continues to provide assistance to other regulators in relation to securities, mutual funds, banking, trusts and insurance matters in accordance with the gateways for disclosure of information as allowed under the Monetary Authority Law (2003 Revision).
An official log of requests for assistance was instituted in 2000. Since then, only in six cases has the Authority not provided assistance because the requesting regulators were unable to provide an undertaking regarding confidentiality as required by law, or withdrew their application pending completion of criminal investigations.