On his accession on 12 July 2005, Prince Albert II gave new impetus to the issue of fiscal transparency and efforts to combat money laundering. “I am determined that the behaviour of the Monegasque authorities should always be rooted in ethics.
Ethics cannot be divided. Money and virtue must always go hand in hand,” said the head of state during a speech in which he set out a road map for the authorities.
The Principality has therefore played an active role in the international fiscal transparency movement since the 2008 financial crisis and has signed 35 bilateral agreements to date.
At the multilateral level, the Principality is also a party to the OECD Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, which aims to increase the sharing of tax information between countries, including on request and automatically, in order to better tackle tax fraud.
In 2016, the Principality signed and ratified an agreement to automatically exchange information with the member states of the European Union. Finally, the country also committed to adopting and implementing all of the mandatory BEPS measures, which seek to combat base erosion and profit shifting.
Since 2009, the OECD World Forum, which brings together 150 countries and jurisdictions, has recognised in its assessment reports that Monegasque law and practice complies with international standards. Monaco does not feature on any of the European Union’s black or grey lists.
In 2022, Monaco incorporated the 6th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (6AMLD) into its legislation. With this expansion of its oversight arsenal, Monaco – like the countries of the European Union – has gained additional resources that it can use to track down fraudsters.
