Vatican Bank Commission appointed

[niseag]

Pope Francis took a key step Wednesday toward reforming the troubled Vatican bank, naming a commission of inquiry to look into its activities amid a new money-laundering probe and continued questions about the very nature of the secretive financial institution.

It was the second time in as many weeks that Francis has intervened to get information out of the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR. On June 15, he filled a key vacancy in the bank's governing structure, tapping a trusted prelate to be his eyes inside the bank.

On Wednesday, he named a commission to investigate the bank's legal structure and activities "to allow for a better harmonization with the universal mission of the Apostolic See," according to the legal document that created it.

Francis named five people to the commission, including two Americans: Monsignor Peter Wells, a top official in the Vatican secretariat of state, and Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See and current president of a pontifical academy.


The bank commission's members have the authority to gather documents, data and information about the bank's legal status and activities, even overriding normal secrecy rules to do so. Members can receive information from anyone in the Vatican bureaucracy as well as people who spontaneously volunteer information, and the commission can refer to outside advisers if necessary, according to the terms.

The bank's administration continues to function as normal, as does the Vatican's new financial watchdog agency which has supervisory control over it.

The commission will report back to Francis — presumably with both information and recommendations — and then will be dissolved, the document states. No timeframe was given but the commission is to start working soon.

[resistk]

A little self promotion here - if the Vatican was really interested in reforming the IOR it would stop setting up numerous internal panels with no authority that come up with preordained outcomes, more incense and smoke:

www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/28/1227044/-Two-Attorneys-and-the-Vatican-s-Sovereign-Immunity

[Noor]

It seems smoke is everywhere these days - some have still a roast burning and some have no roast left...

www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2013/07/29/Vatican-signs-bank-transparency-deal-Italy_9091225.html

[resistk]

Have any names been floated by the Vatican yet for this new financial commission?

[Noor]

The financial Vatican Commission is made of 8 people:

Joseph Zahra (Malta), Monsignor Lucio Angel Ballejo Balda (Vatican), Jean Baptiste de Fransso (France), Enrique Llano (Spain) Jochen Messemer (Germany), Francesca Immacolata Chaouquin (Italian/Egyptian) Jean Videlain-Sevestre (France), Jeorge Yeo (Singapore).

[Noor]

New I.O.R. website:

www.ior.va/

[resistk]

Incredible! Thanks.

[Noor]

vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/vaticano-vatican-vaticano-26835/

[resistk]

The problem I have is that even though the vatican City State falls under EU anti money laundering rules, the IOR has been given pass, I believe falsely because the EU claims it is under the jurisdiction of the Holy See but the new IOR website sites that it is under the jurisdiction of the courts of the Vatican City State.

Art. 3

L'Istituto è responsabile della custodia e amministrazione dei beni ricevuti.

Tale responsabilità è disciplinata dalle norme vigenti nello Stato della Città del Vaticano, dalle disposizioni del presente Statuto e del Regolamento nonché dalle condizioni particolari stabilite per le singole operazioni.

Per eventuali controversie il Foro competente è quello dello Stato della Città del Vaticano.

www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/1990/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_19900301_ist-opere-religione_it.html

Attachments:

[resistk]

Here's what David Guyatt's affidavit on the IOR said:

www.scribd.com/doc/157733397/Declaration-of-David-Guyatt-on-IOR-Vatican-Bank

[ukipa]

The Vatican bank is known in my group as "The greased pig". If you know what I mean.

[niseag]

rumor is that the Vatican bank is likely to close all accounts held by foreign embassies, following concerns about large cash deposits and withdrawals by the missions of Iran, Iraq and Indonesia.

[niseag]

Al Jazeera reports:



The Vatican published its first financial report in its 125-year history Tuesday, amid allegations of money laundering and other financial scandals. The aim, insiders say, is to increase transparency at the secretive institution.

The Institute for Religious Works (IOR), the Vatican bank, rose more than four-fold in 2012 as net trading income rebounded from a loss in 2011, the report said. The IOR said it earned a net profit of $117.2 million in 2012, as compared with its 27.4 million net profit in 2011. More than $67.7 million of its 2012 profit was given to the pope for his charitable works.

The picture may not be so rosy for 2013, with rising interest rates cutting into profits and millions of dollars earmarked for the IOR's ongoing transparency process, which has involved hiring outside legal, financial and communications experts to revamp its procedures, review its client base and remake its image.

"Overall, we expect 2013 to be marked by the extraordinary expenses for the ongoing reform and remediation process, and the effects of rising interest rates,” bank president Ernst von Freyberg said in a statement.

Aside from earnings, the 100-page report published Tuesday provided some fascinating reading about the secretive institution. For example, last year the IOR held $55.9 million in gold, metals and precious coins, owned a real-estate company and was bequeathed two investment properties worth $2.5 million. It also made some $34.9 million in loans in 2012.

The Vatican has long insisted that the IOR isn't a bank, but a unique financial institution aimed at managing assets for religious or charitable works – a distinction that presumably helped it avoid typical banking regulations. Yet in the past year, the IOR has slowly revealed itself to work very much like a bank, making loans and providing asset-management services to its clients, earning some $16.5 million in fees and commissions for doing so in 2012.
Financial scandal

The Vatican is about to enter a second round of international scrutiny by the Council of Europe's Moneyval committee, which helps countries comply with international norms to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. The Vatican passed Moneyval's inaugural inspection last year, but evaluators gave the IOR and the Vatican's financial-oversight agency poor or failing grades for insufficient controls to ensure that its clients and assets were clean.

The Vatican’s annual report came as prosecutors in Rome continued to investigate a Vatican accountant, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who was arrested for his role in an alleged plot to bring $27 million into Italy from Switzerland without declaring it at customs.

The IOR's former top managers, Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli, meanwhile, are under investigation by prosecutors for alleged violations of Italy's anti-money laundering norms. Rome financial police launched the investigation in 2010, seizing $30 million from a Vatican account at an Italian bank after determining that the IOR had not provided sufficient information about the transaction. The Vatican said the event was a misunderstanding, and the money was eventually ordered released.

Both Cipriani and Tulli resigned in July.

Around the same time, Pope Francis created a commission of inquiry into the IOR to examin every aspect of its operations and get to the bottom of the scandals that have bedeviled it. The commission has wide-ranging authority to obtain documents, data and information, even overriding traditional banking secrecy rules to get it.

The Vatican bank was founded in 1942 by Pope Pius XII. It runs the Vatican pension system and oversees about $8.5 billion in customer assets. Customers include religious orders; Vatican offices, embassies and employees; individual cardinals, bishops, priests and foreign embassies accredited to the Holy See.

source: america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/1/vatican-bank-releasesfirsteverfinancialreport.html