Dionne Rose, Parliamentary Reporter

The Jamaica Bankers Association fears that the freezing of assets of persons suspected of money laundering before their arrest, could tip off suspects that the law was on to them.

David Noel, co-chair of the Association's Compliance Committee, yesterday alerted legislators to this while addressing the Joint Select Committee of Parliament considering the Proceeds of Crime Bill. This is a critical piece of legislation in Government's thrust to deprive organised criminals of their ill-gotten gains.

Mr. Noel said the bill in its current form, while seeking to prevent the tipping off of suspected money launderers, is indirectly doing so by requiring a financial institution to freeze the accounts of the suspect until a certain time period has passed, or until the institution receive consent from the designated authority.

"If you freeze the account of a customer and they go to the ABM and they come to withdraw cash, you essentially have to tell that customer 'I am sorry we are unable to provide you with the funds, your accounts have been frozen'," he pointed out.

"Now you can't give a reason because of Section 97 (of the bill) but by saying you can't give a reason that is indirectly tipping off the suspected money launder and this could jeopardise the investigations," he noted.

To prevent this indirect tipping off, Mr. Noel said the bill should allow financial institutions to only freeze accounts until they have a restraining order from the designated authority.

In response, Senator A.J. Nicholson, acting chairman of the committee, said the recommendation was reasonable and that the committee would have to consider it.

Waiting period

The bankers' group, which had appeared before the committee at its previous meeting, also pointed out that if legislators insisted on keeping this part of the bill, they should reduce the transaction waiting period from 31 days to 10.

The association is also recommending that the period given to persons being investigated by the authorities to provide information be extended to 14 days, instead of seven.

Meanwhile, Norman Davis, a tutor at the Norman Manley Law School, who also addressed the committee, does not want the Assets Recovery Agency, an independent non-ministerial government department, to have the power to borrow.

"The reason why I make that submission is that there ought to be no appearance of conflict with a financial institution which the agency might have borrowed from," he pointed out.