Law made easy by Aslam

Hawala is defined as a system to transfer money across border  ‘…based on trust and operating through network based … on regional or ethnic affiliation rather than through banks and financial institutions’ . [1] In other words it is defined as a system which transfers money around the world without any actual money movement. [2] The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), quotes number of terms to refer to hawala, such as (i) as informal funds transfer ; (ii) alternative remittance; (iii) underground or parallel banking ; (v) a relationship; or (iv) intermediary banking. [3] In Arabic language, the term ‘hawala’ means ‘change’ or ‘transform’; by contrast, in Hindi or Urdu it refers to ‘trust’; the terms ‘hawala’ and ‘hundi’ are also used in India and Pakistan interchangeably. [4]   It is said that the hawala money transfer functions as a financial services provider in those remote parts of the world where normally the banking systems are unreachable. [5] Besides, other v...

Money laundering law in Oman The Sultanate of Oman, [1] is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which is one of the member of Financial Action Task Force (FATF). [2] In addition to that Oman is also a member of Middle East and North Africa Financial International Task Force (MENAFATF), an affiliate of the FATF. [3] In Oman, the first law regarding money laundering was promulgated in 2002, namely, the Money Laundering Law (ML1), the Royal Decree No. 34/2002. The ML1 was accompanied by the Executive Regulations of the Anti-Money Laundering Law (ER), the Royal Decree 72/2004. Later, in 2010, the ML1 was replaced by the Anti Money Laundering and Combating Terrorist Financing Law (ML2), the Royal Decree No. 79/2010. As per law of Oman, the act of money laundering is considered as a crime and for that the authorities have taken numerous efforts to put that in conformity with the requirements of the United Nations Vienna Convention, Palermo Conventions, and FATF. [4] T...

Money laundering. Part 1: A brief introduction The term ‘money laundering’ is defined as a way by which criminals hide and disguise the origin and ownership of the proceeds of their crimes in order to avoid the prosecution, conviction and confiscation of the criminal funds; the technique is basically adopted to change the dirty money into clean money. [1] Other explanation is that it is a system to provide false stories for money transfers in document by mapping out the scheme for money laundering and exposing the differences between the true reasons for the money transfers and the presented reasons, the criminality of purpose is laid bare. [2] Thus, m oney laundering is the process of disguising the origins of property which has been acquired through criminal conduct . [3]    Traditionally, the process of money laundering consists of three stage; those are (i) placement, (ii) layering and (iii) integration. [4] At placement, attempts are made to conceal the ident...

In maritime law, ship arrest in some respect comes under the head of maritime liens. Globally, the provisions for ship arrest are contained in the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to the Arrest of Seagoing Ship of 1952. The Convention is recognized and enforceable in the 71 countries of the world. Besides, there are 19 countries as signatories. Basically, the Convention emphasis on the type of maritime claims, a ship can be arrested for. In particular, it only recognizes the ship arrest as legitimate if the same is in conformity with the Convention. Parallel to that it also highlights a comprehensive procedure with respect to the release of arrested ship. Later, the Convention was revised in the International Convention on Maritime Liens and Mortgages, 1993. More recently, the International Convention on Arrest of Ships, 1999 was concluded which came into force in September 2011. However, as of January 2015, only the eleven countries ratified the...