A/HRC/22/42 integrity of the international financial system”.45 While its regime initially focused on combating money-laundering related to drug trafficking, FATF has recently devoted more attention to the issue of laundering of the proceeds of corruption. 46 In February 2012, FATF adopted a new set of recommendations which, if translated into national law, will provide an opportunity to ensure that national legislation makes it more difficult to hide illicit money in secrecy jurisdictions. B. National initiatives 36. Many countries have adopted anti-money-laundering legislation enabling banks and other financial intermediaries to identify parties to agreements or to report any suspicious transactions. 37. Some countries have recently adopted measures that require companies listed on their stock exchange to provide information about their financial activities on a country-bycountry basis. For example, the Dodd-Franck Act in the United States requires extractive companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange to disclose information about their financial activity around the world on a country-by-country basis. On 22 August 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued binding regulations to implement the oilgas and mining disclosure provisions contained in the Dodd-Franck Act. Starting in 2014, an estimated 1,100 companies will have to start disclosing the payments they make to Governments on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis. A directive that would introduce country-by-country reporting by multinational companies in the European Union is currently under consideration. 47 Expanding country-by-country reporting to the European Union would be an important step, as it has been pointed out, that out of the 350 gas, oil and mining companies that are for example listed on the London Stock Exchange, only 14 companies would have to report to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States.48 So far such initiatives have mainly been limited to extractive industries. 38. Since 2001, the Government of Switzerland has organized informal meetings of Government experts on asset recovery in Lausanne. In 2011, the Government introduced a new law, the Restitution of Illicit Assets Act, which supplements the Federal Act on International Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters and provides a further legal basis for freezing and repatriating assets of politically exposed persons (that is, heads of State and senior public officials who embezzle State funds) when procedures of mutual legal assistance have failed to produce the desired outcome. The country has returned about CHF1.7 billion to countries of origin. 39. The Independent Expert welcomes the above-mentioned multilateral and national initiatives. Nevertheless, there are some questions about the effectiveness of some national initiatives which may point to the need for more robust regulation by the States concerned. For example, in November 2012, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority published an assessment of due diligence obligations of Swiss banks when handling assets of politically exposed persons. The study found that Swiss banks had correctly identified 22 out of 29 customers as politically exposed persons. The study however indicated that one bank had applied a very narrow definition of politically exposed persons in its operations 45 46 47 48 14 See http://www.fatf-gafi.org/pages/aboutus (accessed on 19 February 2013). See FATF/OECD, Laundering the Proceeds of Corruption (Paris, 2011). See http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/accounting/other_en.htm and http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2010/financial-reporting_en.htm. Marta Ruiz and Maria José Romero, Exposing the lost billions: How financial transparency by multinationals on a country by country basis can aid development (Brussels, Eurodad, 2010), p. 21.