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Dubai Regulator Discusses the Rise of Emirates’ AML Efforts: Keeping an Eye on Trade Finance and Real Estate
By Brian Orsak
printWhen Marc Hambach began working in Dubai in 2002, the emirate's anti-money laundering (AML) regulations were nearly non-existent. Few international financial institutions were willing to have a footprint in a place where regulatory expectations were unclear, and case law untried. Most bankers would fly into the city, grab their money, and leave. But in the post-September 11 push to clean up international finance, the emirate's leader invited a multinational team of regulators and lawyers, including Hambach, to develop wholesale banking regulations for a 110-acre free financial zone near the city's desert border. The zone, called the Dubai International Financial Centre...
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