List of all documents pertaining to FATCA
Dear European Banking Authority,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting a list of all documents pertaining to the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act or contributing to statements, guidelines, and decisions referencing FATCA.
Please note that this list should also include documents referencing member state / supervisory authority opinions, views, and commentaries. If necessary, information on authorship and national origin may be redacted to avoid undue external pressure, in line with the sentiment and intentions expressed in EU Ombudsman decision 386/2021 (https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decis...) with regards to right of access requests to another European Union body.
Yours faithfully,
Nicholas Lee
Dear Mr Lee,
Thank you for your communication, which we acknowledge receipt of. We will be reverting within due course, pursuant to Regulation (EC) 1049/2001.
Kind regards,
Legal and Compliance Unit
Dear EBA -AtD,
I write further to the Information Request that I submitted on October 15 2021 and whose receipt was acknowledged by EBA on October 28th.
As this was an information request under Regulation 1049/2001, the information request should have been
processed in a timely manner within the 15 working days permitted under the regulation, a time period that lapsed yesterday.
I kindly ask that you please process this information request completely and promptly.
Yours faithfully,
Nicholas Lee
Dear Mr Lee,
Thanks for your messages.
The EBA is finalising the assessment of your requests, and we expect to provide our responses later today.
We apologise for the delay and any inconvenience.
Kind regards,
Legal and Compliance Unit
Dear Mr Lee,
Thank you for your emails requesting access to documents pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. The European Banking Authority strives to be transparent and open to as great an extent as possible.
As regards your request of access to all documents pertaining to the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) or contributing to statements, guidelines, and decisions referencing FATCA, and to PETI Petitions 1088/2016, 323/2021, 1470/2020 and 394/2021: given the related scope and content of your five requests, we are hereby providing a single response in which we are covering all of your requests and we are providing all documents the EBA holds pertaining to FATCA.
To start with, in the context of the public EBA Call for Input on de-risking, the EBA has received a number of responses from respondents claiming to be ‘accidental Americans’ (and as such, affected by FATCA). You may find the responses marked as non-confidential at the following link: https://www.eba.europa.eu/regulation-and... (see in particular responses No. 49,79, and 89). As regards the responses that respondents requested the EBA to treat as confidential, the EBA is currently consulting the respondents in accordance with Article 4(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 with a view to assessing their replies and subsequently establish whether an exception from disclosure applies. We will inform you once we have received and assessed their replies.
Following the Call for Input, the EBA presented the results of its analysis in a series of discussion notes presented at two of the EBA’s standing committees, the Standing Committee on Consumer Protection and Financial Innovation (SCConFin) and the Standing Committee on anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing (AMLSC). Furthermore, the issue of the so-called ‘accidental Americans’ was also referred to as part of 2 summaries of conclusion (SoCs) of SCConFin meetings. Please find attached all the relevant parts of these documents that relate to FATCA, with content that is not related to FATCA and also personal data redacted:
-Progress update on the EBA Call for input on de-risking, ScConFin, 2 February 2021;
-Discussion note on the EBA work on de-risking, ScConFin, 24 March 2021;
-Discussion note on the EBA’s further work on de-risking, ScConFin, 7 July 2021;
-Progress update on the EBA Call for input on de-risking, AMLSC, 10 February 2021;
-Discussion note on the EBA’s further work on de-risking, AMLSC, 5 July 2021;
-49th Meeting of the Standing Committee on Consumer Protection and Financial Innovation (SCConFin), 2 February 2021 – Summary of Conclusions (SoCs)– Agenda Item 2;
-50th Meeting of the Standing Committee on Consumer Protection and Financial Innovation (SCConFin), 24 March 2021 – Summary of Conclusions (SoCs) – Agenda Item 8.
Furthermore, the EBA provided an update of the Call for Input to the its Banking Stakeholder Group (BSG) at its meeting on 29 April 2021. Please find also attached the relevant parts of the related presentation.
Finally, the EBA has identified a document containing comments by National Competent Authorities, and we are in the process of consulting them with a view to assessing their replies and subsequently establish whether an exception from disclosure applies, in accordance with Article 4(4) and 4(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. We will inform you once we have received and assessed their replies.
We trust that the above is of assistance to you. However, should you not be satisfied with our reply, you may consider your right to a confirmatory application under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
Yours sincerely,
EBA Legal and Compliance Unit
Dear EBA -AtD,
Thank you for your response containing the first part of the documents.
Regarding the document identified as containing comments from the National Competent Authorities, while it is true that the Member States may request the exclusion of documents, I encourage the EBA to take into account the EU Ombudsman 0386/2021 decision that leans in favour of broad access and disclosure to the public, relying on anonymisation to achieve this.
If a member state objects to disclosure of a document containing their opinion, it would be preferable to redact all information that could identify member states / NCAs in the document, rather than excluding the entire document or specific comments.
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Lee
Dear EBA -AtD,
Following up on your November 11th reply and my response, are you able to provide an update providing the timeline for evaluation and a reference number / title on the document that is being evaluated for disclosure?
This would concern "a document containing comments by National Competent Authorities", as mentioned earlier in the month.
Thank you,
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Lee
Dear European Banking Authority,
Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.
I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'List of all documents pertaining to FATCA'.
In the initial response to the Information Request, reference was made to "a document containing comments by National Competent Authorities" whose suitability for disclosure was being evaluated. Since November 11th, no further communication has occurred containing the document, a decision related to the document, or a timeline for evaluation.
As we have now well past the original 15 day time window, I am requesting a confirmatory application concerning the delayed evaluation of this one document for disclosure that exceeds what is permissible by law. Should the disclosure of the document be partially redacted or wholly refused, this confirmatory application should outline the detailed basis for this.
A full history of my request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/list...
Yours faithfully,
Nicholas Lee
Dear Mr Lee,
Thanks for your email.
In relation to your questions on the document which is being evaluated for disclosure: in 2018 the EBA asked a series of questions to ScConFin members on the cases where credit institutions have rejected consumers' applications to open accounts with basic features because of the risks associated with FATCA non-compliance. The referred documents is a spreadsheet containing the responses from the National Competent Authorities. The EBA is currently in the process of finalising the consultation with the National Competent Authorities with a view to assessing their replies and subsequently establish whether an exception from disclosure applies, in accordance with Article 4(4) and 4(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. We will keep you informed of the progress of our assessment.
Yours faithfully,
EBA Legal and Compliance Unit
Dear Mr Lee,
Thank you for your communication, which we acknowledge receipt of.
We will be reverting to you within due course.
Kind regards,
Legal and Compliance Unit
Dear Mr lee,
In continuation to our email below, might we please request that any further correspondence concerning access to documents should be sent to [email address].
Many thanks for your kind understanding,
Kind regards,
Legal and Compliance Unit
Dear Mr Lee,
Thanks for your confirmatory application.
As explained in our email dated 2 December 2021, in 2018 the EBA asked certain national competent authorities a series of questions regarding cases where credit institutions have rejected consumers' applications to open accounts with basic features because of the risks associated with FATCA non-compliance. We have been in the process of consulting with the mentioned authorities with regard to the disclosure of the responses pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
The EBA is currently finalising consultation with some of those authorities in order to respond fully to your request, but in the meantime we hereby disclose to you in the attached spreadsheet the full responses received in 2018 from fourteen of the competent authorities concerned.
We will keep you informed of progress in advance of completing the assessment of your request as regards the responses of the remaining authorities, and we hope to be able to provide you with our final assessment of your request soon. We thank you again for your request and would ask you to bear with us.
Yours faithfully,
EBA Legal and Compliance Unit
Dear Mr Lee,
We are following up on your confirmatory application pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, asking the European Banking Authority (EBA) to disclose a document containing comments by National Competent Authorities whose suitability for disclosure was being evaluated.
As explained in our emails dated 2 December and 9 December 2021, in 2018 the EBA asked certain national competent authorities a series of questions regarding cases where credit institutions have rejected consumers' applications to open accounts with basic features because of the risks associated with FATCA non-compliance. The referred document is a spreadsheet containing the responses to the questions by the National Competent Authorities involved.
We are happy to disclose to you in the attached spreadsheet the full responses received in 2018 by all the competent authorities.
Yours sincerely,
EBA Legal and Compliance Unit
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Note: Response on this thread is also considered fully responsive to request here: https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/docu...