A historic US-Caribbean Round table on Citizenship by Investment was held in St Kitts and Nevis on 25 February 2023 with US team led by Deputy Assistant Secretary, US Department of Treasury Ms Anna Morris, Governor of Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and Prime Ministers of five CBI countries.
The five caribbean governments collectively committed to six CBI principles proposed by the US, several of which had previously been proactively adopted by the OECS states of their own volition as part of their risk management framework to strengthen and safeguard the integrity of their CBI Programmes, collective fight to safeguard their respective financial systems against threats posed by illicit actors.
The US team led by team of experts has recognized importance of CBI to small countries for public developement. All five CBI countries agreed on implementing six common principles to safeguard the financial systems.
1. Collective agreement on treatment of denials: Not to process
applications from persons whose applications have been denied in another CBI jurisdiction, by proactively sharing information on denials.
2. Interviews: Conduct interviews with applicants, whether virtual or in-
person.
3. Additional checks: Each jurisdiction will run checks on each application
with the Financial Intelligence Unit of its respective country.
4. Audits: Audit the Program annually or every two years in accordance
with internationally accepted standards.
5. Retrieval of passports: Request law enforcement assistance to retrieve revoked/recalled passports.
6. Treatment of Russians and Belarusians: Suspend processing applications from Russians and Belarusians. Four jurisdictions have already suspended applications and Grenada which processes applications from Russians and Belarusians with enhanced due diligence,
will suspend processing new applications from Russia and Belarus from
March 31, 2023
The CBI States requested that the US Government facilitate a similar engagement with the European and United Kingdom based on the six agreed principles. Parties also agreed to convene a technical discussion within the next four to six months to assess the status of implementation of the agreed six principles.
