On Aug 18 negotiations were completed for a double taxation avoidance agreement with South Korea.

A double taxation agreement with Mexico has been ratified by the Panama legislature. Other treaties have been signed with Barbados, and negotiations have been closed with France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Qatar, Luxembourg and Portugal.

http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/actualidad/proyectos/2010/2010_P_156.pdf Mexico-Panama Agreement for Double Taxation Avoidance and Tax Evasion Prevention

http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/actualidad/proyectos/2010/2010_P_153.pdf Qatar
http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/actualidad/proyectos/2010/2010_P_146.pdf Italy
http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/actualidad/proyectos/2010/2010_P_148.pdf Belgium-Luxembourg
http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/actualidad/proyectos/2010/2010_P_147.pdf Finland

A bill to ratify a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Russia has been submitted. This Agreement provides that:
Bank secrecy can not be used as a basis for denying legal assistance.
3. The Parties may not refuse a request for legal assistance only because it is considered that the crime also involves tax matters.
http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/actualidad/proyectos/2010/2010_P_150.pdf Russia MLAT Bill

Source: http://mypanamalawyer.blogspot.com…

Quote: Ma Twan-lin – General Examination of Records and Scholars published after 20 years research in 1321.

The past several years was been a time of transformation for the world of digital currency. In April of 2008, an interesting report on the industry surfaced. Unfortunately, the document was not published by Bryan Cave & Affiliates, Bloomberg or the American Banker. This report came from the U.S. Department of Justice report and it identified these popular digital currency dealers.

• GoldMoney, Mr. James Turk
• Pecunix, Simon Davis
• e-dinar, Dr. Habib (Zeno) Dahinden
• Liberty Reserve, Mr. Arthur Budovsky
• e-gold, Dr. Douglas Jackson
• e-bullion, Jim & Pamela Fayed
• 1MDC, Mr. J.P. May
• Phoenix Dollar, Mr. Gordon Hayes
• Liberty Dollar and e-Liberty dollar, Mr. Bernard von NotHaus

It has now been just over two years since that report was published and the global digital currency landscape is has been changing very rapidly. On one side of the industry, all of the the dealers which were identified in that report and were operating from the U.S. are now closed or have been rendered inactive. At the other end of the spectrum, those businesses which operated from foreign jurisdictions have all experienced dramatic growth. Here is a brief history of what occurred over the past 2-3 years along with a present day snapshot and some questions about what is ahead for the digital currency industry.

Money Transmitting

As far was we know, the operator of Phoenix Dollar, Mr. Gordon Hayes, voluntarily decided to close down his operation citing the hostile U.S. business environment. That closure occurred sometime in late 2007 or early 2008 and to the best of our knowledge Gordon has not encountered any legal issues. The other digital currency businesses which operated from the U.S. were not so lucky.

Not included in the DOJ list were another two popular U.S. digital currency providers, Crowne Gold and NetPay.tv. Both of these online payment systems were charged with operating as an unlicensed money transmitting business and eventually had to close.

In July 2008, the e-gold operators pleaded guilty to criminal charges relating to money laundering and the operation of an illegal money transmitting business. Millions of dollars were seized by the government during the criminal action plus the owners of the company were hit with a $300,000 fine at sentencing (no jail). Additionally, in October of 2009 e-gold’s related company Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc. of Melbourne, FL was fined $2.95 million for OFAC violations relating to Iranian Transactions Regulations which occurred between September 2003 and December 2006. While e-gold is technically still in business today (the web site is online and operating, precious metal is still in the accounts), there are no transactions occurring while they continue to seek the proper government licensing. It is encouraging to see that e-gold is attempting to operate as a fully licensed, registered and regulated U.S. company.

In August 2008 James Fayed of e-bullion was arrested on felony charges of operating as an unlicensed money transmitting business. The e-bullion web site went offline permanently and more than $24 million in gold bullion and cash was seized. His wife Pamela Fayed, had been murdered in July of that year, just one month earlier and currently James is also facing a list of very serious charges relating to the “murder for hire” of his late wife. The money transmitting charge against him was dropped but remains on the books against his Goldfinger Coin & Bullion/e-bullion business.

In April of 2007, a US court order forced e-gold to liquidate a large number of accounts with a total balance in the millions. The cash proceeds were seized by the U.S. Government. In this action, all of 1MDC operational accounts backed by e-gold and held in pooled storage under the 1MDC operator’s control, were closed. With all of the business’s financial assets confiscated, 1MDC became insolvent and eventually closed.

In November of 2007, across multiple locations in different states, FBI agents raided offices of the Liberty Dollar. Agents seized more than 2 tons of copper coins, 500 pounds of silver coins, more 3 pounds of gold and several ounces of platinum. A federal grand jury brought an indictment against von NotHaus and three others in May 2009. Bernard von NotHaus was arrested on June 6, 2009 along with two others and has been charged with a list of felonies relating to the Liberty Dollar business. On July 28, 2009, von NotHaus entered a plea of not guilty. He was released on bail but in July 2010 was jailed again for violating the terms of the Appearance Bond. The web site is now offline. Both Bernard and another primary Liberty Dollar dealer Mr. Kevin Innes are jailed awaiting trail.

In 2006, Liberty Reserve creator and digital currency heavyweight, Mr. Arthur Budovsky along with his close associate Mr. Vladimir Kats were arrested their Brooklyn apartments and charged with allegedly violating Article 13-B of New York State Banking Law.  Article 13-B states that it is a felony to transfer money without a license if one knowingly transmits $250,000 or more in a year from a single client in a year; $25,000 or more in 30 days; and $10,000 or more in a single transaction. Eight subsidiary businesses operated by the defendants have also been indicted and approximately $2 million dollars was seized. The indictment charges that the defendants operated an illegal money transmittal business that received and transmitted $4 million between January 1, 2006 and June 30, 2006. Manhattan District Attorney’s office stated that at least $30 million was illegally transmitted to accounts worldwide since the start of the defendants’ illegal activities. However, Liberty Reserve which is domiciled in a foreign jurisdiction and has their operations located outside of the U.S. suffered no set backs and the 2006 arrests did not slow down that operation.

What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

The 4 popular digital currency businesses listed in the DOJ report, which were operating from foreign business centers, suffered no problems and have all recorded a sharp increase in business over the past two years. Particularly the Digital Gold Currency companies.

GoldMoney, which is now one of the world’s largest providers and holders of physical bullion for retail investors, now stores more than US$1 billion of financial assets on behalf of its customers. This company has achieved a growth of 112% in less than 18 months. GoldMoney’s operating company is Net Transactions Limited which is located in Jersey, Channel Islands UK.

Pecunix which is a Panama corporation also operating outside of the U.S. has nearly doubled their gold reserves over the past 4 years.

Popular Liberty Reserve, which is now headquartered in Costa Rica, has been opening around 4,000 new accounts each week.

Based in the United Arab Emirates, e-dinar and its corresponding bullion business have experienced growth of almost 100% in their gold and silver redemptions between 2008 and 2009. (650 kg of gold and almost 5 tons of silver in 2009) After the fall of Lehman Brothers, e-dinar’s gold production increased by 400% as compared to the period preceding that bankruptcy. In 2010, e-dinar’s operator, Dr. Zeno Dahinden, expects to see an increase in physical redemptions to a level of around 25 million U.S. dollars.

Global digital currency leader Webmoney Transfer has also shown exceptional growth. Webmoney purses are used by retail customers everyday in more than 43 countries around the world and the online payment system has more than 12 million customer accounts. The daily number of transactions and the size of the transactions along with the number of account registrations in the system all have grown by roughly ten fold in the last decade. The chart showing Webmoney’s annual activity looks like a graphic of Mt. Everest.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. ~Francis Bacon

While becoming more mainstream the leading digital currency companies have been growing larger, more transparent and more regulated. As the industry matures these top participants should continue to evolve and gain market share.

New smaller emerging pockets of the digital currency world which have no intentions of ever being properly operated, are now emerging in jurisdictions far from America’s regulated shores. Unfortunately, these cash hungry operators also lived through the past several years and bore witness to the U.S. government’s prosecutorial carnage. These “shadow banking” paper companies with no trails leading back to the actual owner/operators are popping up like weeds. Here is a sample of home made digital currency companies that arrived on the scene shortly after the e-gold prosecution.

Digital Currency Dealers version 2.0

• Procurrex (2009) http://www.procurrex.com/ A paper company reportedly based in the British Virgin Islands. Attempting to describe the ease of cross border transactions offered by the company, their web site reads, ““Hi! I am Mr.Border!…I don’t fear of you, my name is PROCURREX.”.
• ECU Money (2008) http://ecumoney.com/ At one time claiming to be licensed as a New Zealand Bank, the web site now shows that ECUmoney Limited is a Republic of Nauru limited company.
• EuroGoldCash (2008) http://www.eurogoldcash.com/ Owned and operated by Big Brain International S.A., a Panamanian corporation. Descriptive text on the company’s web site reads, “No verifications, no questions – You can send a payment anonymously”, which seems to conflict with the boilerplate AML policy page listed on the web site.
• Global Digital Pay (2008) http://www.globaldigitalpay.com/ Owned by Digital Trade Network Ltd, a British Virgin Islands paper company and the trail ends there.
• Numox Ltd. (live in 2008) http://www.numox.com/ Another paper company registered in the Republic of Seychelles. Home made Numox boasts a “real-time global payment environment” direct from the hidden operator’s home town in southwestern Slovakia.
• Perfect Money (2007) http://perfectmoney.com/ Yet, another paper company, Perfect Money Finance Corp. is registered in the Republic of Panama. This company’s operators obviously have roots in Russia. Their business even boasts several exchange agents in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

None of these version 2.0 digital currency companies have any kind of useful KYC program or employ any type of database screening. None of the companies use any kind of AML software, have any reporting requirements for suspicious activity or provide any financial data to banking or tax authorities.

Are these companies and the dozens of others like them a new wave of “free trade advocates” tired of high banking fees? No, these are very dangerous fly by night paper companies which provide payment services to online scams, ponzi schemes, crooks and have the alarming potential to engage in financial transactions on behalf of some extremely bad people.

Much like experiencing a visit from the classic “Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come” our young digital currency industry has awoken from it’s slumber. A future, filled with these version 2.0 paper companies brings this quote to mind “I fear you more than any spectre I have seen.”

Source: http://www.e-comlaw.com

There are currently no laws, regulations, or policies defining e-money or specifically governing e-money and the transfer of or payment by e-money. However, as noted, regulations on e-money are expected, perhaps as soon as the coming year. The Ministry of Finance and Russian Central Bank are leading the initiative to craft e-money regulation for the vibrant industry that has grown up in this space. Some argue that nonbank entities should be prohibited from issuing e-money. Yet others urge consideration of a special regulatory status that would permit both bank-issued and qualified nonbank-issued on e-money, along the lines permitted in the European Union’s new E-Money Directive.23 Another question, as yet not finally determined, is whether e-money regulation will be incorporated into the planned law on the national payment system (which is already far along in development) or adopted later as free-standing regulation.

In the meantime, e-money issuers argue that e-money may be issued over the Internet and by mobile service operators, relying on a variety of laws. For example, WebMoney, which describes the transfer of e-money as an “agreement on property rights transfer by means of digital units,” has invoked a 1929 Russian decree as the legal basis for issuing e-money. Others have argued that a bank may issue e-money only as a “virtual” card pursuant to a 2004 Central Bank instruction that permits a bank “to issue a bank prepaid card (or other card) in electronic form.”24

1 The 2008 “Notes on Regulation of Branchless Banking in Russia” was based on an analysis of existing legislation and regulations relevant to branchless banking approaches and on the CGAP research team’s insights from interviews with a range of stakeholders. The original diagnostic assessment was carried out under the auspices of CGAP’s Technology Program,  which is co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Russian diagnostic assessment was one of seven that provided evidence for CGAP & DFID’s Focus Note 43, Lyman, Timothy, Mark Pickens, and David Porteous. 2008. “Regulating Transformational Branchless Banking: Mobile Phones and Other Technology to Increase Access to Finance.”  Washington, D.C.: CGAP & DFID, January.”
2 The research involved a review of new laws and regulations and interviews with Mikhail Mamuta (Russian Microfinance Centre), Oleg Ivanov (vice-president of the Association of Regional Banks of Russia, expert of the State Duma of Russia), and Victor Dostov (chairman, Russian Electronic Money Association).
3 In September 2009, the G-20 called for the establishment of a Financial Inclusion Experts Group with two subgroups, one of which is the ATI Sub-Group. CGAP is a member of an experts group assembled to assist the ATI Sub-Group in its work, which includes updating information previously published on the policy and regulatory framework for branchless
banking in various developing countries.

23 It is in part to explain the benefits of the latter approach and debate risk mitigation, that nonbank e-money issuers have formed the “Electronic Money Association” described in Section 2.3, to engage in dialogue with the Central Bank and other interested policy makers and regulators.
24 Regulation No. 266-P, “On the Issuance of Bank Cards and on Transactions Carried Out with Payment Cards,” 24 December 2004, as amended through 21 September 2006.

Even if clear and consistent regulatory measures are imposed, digital currency services established in foreign and offshore jurisdictions—which are not subject to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)—can be used to conduct transactions in the United States. Limited international oversight of this expanding financial service is possible through a recommendation of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF).The FATF has publicly stated the need to monitor the growth of this industry and implement anti-money laundering controls; however, FATF recommendations will have little effect on nonmember countries. It would be nearly impossible to legislate regulatory controls that would allow the U.S. government to prevent completely foreign-based digital currencies from being used in the United States, because these services are available through the Internet.

U.S. Department of Justice
National Drug Intelligence Center
Product No. 2008-R0709-003
June 2008

Mohamed Abbas. He is responsible for customer relations with e-dinar FZ LLC, a Dubai based internet-firm operating in gold and silver trading.

(gm) What do Muslims think about such topics as finance methods, globalization and alternatives to the expected speculative crisis in the worldwide finance markets? Until now we have primarily heard about so-called ‘Islamic-Banking’, an attempt to create a capitalism with an Islamic face. This is the hot topic which we discussed with Mohamed Abbas. He is responsible for customer relations with e-dinar FZ LLC, a Dubai based internet-firm operating in gold and silver trading. The following opinions of Mohamed Abbas are his own personal views and not necessarily the expression of the views and opinions of his employer.

gm: Dear Mr. Abbas, the whole world is talking about globalization and phenomenon in connection with that. Do you see a connection there with the recurring interest in gold and silver?

Mohamed Abbas: I see only an indirect connection if any. The global consolidation of the world economy causes the simultaneous employment of large capital amounts in different markets and continents. The enormous liquidity required for that is made available through ever greater indebtedness – see the USA – and through a worldwide acceleration of growth in the money supply. Indebtedness and money supply growth in their turn lead to inflation and loss of purchasing power. This is where gold and silver come in useful – as documented protection against inflation and decline of value. By their inherent value the precious metals remain inflation neutral and protect their owner from depreciation.

gm: These money supplies are so to say the fuel of globalization?

Mohamed Abbas: Let me explain this a bit more exactly: the original ‘empowering’ of globalization was based on the freely moveable utilization of large capital sums for implementing worldwide co-ordinated consolidation and acquisition strategies. In other words: globalization causes an unnaturally high liquidity and world economic growth which are extended beyond a compatible degree – we see this in the continually accelerating environmental pollution and the climate catastrophes linked with that. This super-capital, which today is in the service of ever fewer, is used as a means for total economic consolidation (call it globalization) and has successfully freed itself from any claim, from the need to satisfy any moral or ethical requirements. In other words, the global use of capital is guaranteed through the ‘free market economy’ and as such cannot be placed in question. The necessary liquidity is based on increasing indebtedness and a growth of the money supply which have taken on an alarming dimension. While during the continuously growing indebtedness an ever-greater proportion of the domestic gross national product is obligated to servicing the interest on the debt, money is being printed without end, as it were until we run out of trees, and the M3, as the broadest measure of the money supply, with presently 12 to 13 per cent growth annually in the USA and the Eurozone – in the poorer regions the money supply growth is significantly higher. In other words: in order to guarantee the liquidity needed for globalization and to finance the indebtedness in connection with that, the western countries are today creating new money at the rate of up to 13 per cent per annum.

gm: Where does this new money come from?

Mohamed Abbas: The new money doesn’t bring any new value along with it since this new money is born in a magical fashion – it’s created out of nothing – and isn’t backed up by inherent value like gold, rather it ‘borrows’ this attribute as it were from existing money, with the result that every year the existing money loses a corresponding share of its purchasing power – the M3 money supply growth is clearly closer to the real inflation than the too-low and glossed-over inflation numbers which the central banks use for the official inflation analyses. Interestingly the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) has stopped measuring and publishing the M3 since the end of 2006, most likely in order to keep driving the wondrous reproduction of money higher, undisturbed by any annoying criticism.

This means for the Eurozone, that in seven years twice as many Euros will be in circulation as is the case today. Although this should sound thought-provoking, there is no resistance. While the state thereby finances its bad economic policies, the citizen is left holding the stick with more and more cheap money, in the long-term we as workers and normal salaried employees will be the ones to suffer from such a ruinous money policy.

gm: Is it because of that that the gold question is also more popular than ever?

Mohamed Abbas: As you certainly know e-dinar together with Emirates Gold (the largest gold and silver producer in the Middle East) produces the gold dinar and the silver dirham as the traditional currency of the Muslims in accordance with the exact historical standards. Dinar and dirham were employed for more than 1200 years from China to Europe and Africa as the most important means of payment and are the most significant and longest accepted bi-metallic currency in the history of humankind. The gold dinar and the silver dirham consequently have a strong symbolic character. On a practical level gold and silver are ideal candidates to avoid the previously described inflation trap. Since gold and silver are not created out of nothing, rather have to be wrestled out of the ground, transported and refined, precious metals have a guaranteed inherent value, which is based on a combination of the costs of obtaining and producing, rarity and demand on the market. This inherent value averts a reduction in purchasing power – gold and silver are historically regarded as immune to inflation. With higher inflation gold and silver are correspondingly increasing in value even more rapidly, which was certainly clearly observable in recent years.

gm: Does this mean that we should return to some kind of gold standard?

Mohamed Abbas: As you likely know, the last official gold standard, which was anchored in the Bretton-Woods agreement, was finally dissolved by President Nixon in 1971. That means that what was then the existing partial backing of the US dollar by gold was removed. This was at the same time the formal end of gold as the ‘reserve currency’. The outcome of the wondrous paper money reproduction since 1971 has resulted in extreme inflation and usurious interest rates – since 1980 both have grown at well over 10 per cent annually – and one of the biggest gold ‘bull-runs’ of history, in which the gold ounce price had increased by 2000 per cent in ten years: from $44 US dollars in 1971 to $850 US dollars in 1980. Although in conclusion only a linking of the money growth to gold can reconstruct the necessary fiscal discipline – governments have shown us satisfactorily in recent times that they are incapable of maintaining such discipline themselves – such a measure is no longer implementable in the developing world today. We have already left the ‘point of no return’ behind us and find ourselves on a financial and world economy collision course. Even if it were achievable to reinstate retroactively a partial gold standard, the deceleration of the economical expansion and money supply growth caused thereby would bring about rather an earlier than a later economic and financial collapse in the West – an exception here, which is discussed later, is presented by the poorest countries in the world. Thus for the rich countries there remains only the unattractive alternative to meet the disaster with open eyes.

Let us consider briefly a couple of characteristic data. While the total gold inventory ‘above-ground’, including all bullion, jewelry and coins, is around 160,000 tons worldwide (according to current market value just $4 billion US dollars), the worldwide paper value including money, stocks and shares, bonds, derivatives is from $250 up to $400 billion US dollars according to different sources and estimates. As a graphic illustration: all the gold of the world could be easily stored in a medium sized hall.

A new gold standard would mean among other things, that a retrospective backing of the worldwide paper value by gold would cause a 50 to 100-fold increase in the gold price – a factual impossibility.

A new gold standard can only then be implemented after the unavoidable collapse of the worldwide financial system – the question here is not whether, but when. Only then, you see, will gold find its way back to its historical role as the ‘mother of all money’.

Read the full interview here.

By Patrick A. Heller
August 06, 2010

Over the past several years, the government in China has set up infrastructure to enable the nation’s citizens to purchase physical gold. It has also periodically issued pronouncements urging the public to buy gold. During this time, the Chinese government has been a stronger advocate of the private ownership of gold than any other country.

This effort to increase domestic demand is above and beyond the huge amounts of gold that China’s central bank has added to its reserves since 2003.

One thing you have to keep in mind about the potential demand for gold in China is that there are not the social (government) safety nets as there are in the United States.  As a result, the Chinese save more than 50 percent of their income as “insurance.” Compared to the typical American, the average Chinese citizen has a huge amount of funds available to allocate to purchasing gold.

There have been significant problems with Chinese citizens being able to acquire physical gold. There are simply too few outlets carrying insufficient inventory.  From 2007 to 2009, private physical gold demand in China quadrupled from almost 580,000 ounces to more than 2.3 million ounces. I have heard multiple stories of people having to wait in line at gold stores for as long as four hours in order to make a purchase.

On Aug. 3, the People’s Bank of China announced several developments to broaden access to gold for private citizens and increase competition in the markets.

According to a statement posted on the PBOC website, more commercial banks will be authorized to import and export physical gold.  In addition, the banks will be encouraged to offer yuan-denominated gold derivatives, which would provide paper evidence of the ownership of some of the rights of owning physical gold.

Click here to read the full article….

The aim of the Foundation is to promote and support educational initiatives that expound the principles of sound money. Its scope is global. Thus, it is expected that over time the Foundation will become an influential addition to the well-established tradition of leadership in sound money that has been an important building block of GoldMoney Network Limited.

Key Principles of the GoldMoney Foundation

The key principles of the Foundation are based upon the scholarly framework developed within the Austrian School of Economics, and especially the works of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. The Foundation aims to encourage the broadening of this base of knowledge in new and important ways relevant to today’s economy. The Internet and other technological advancements for improved communication such as mobile telephony enable human interaction in commerce in ways never before possible. The educational efforts of the Foundation aim to make sound money a central topic as online commerce grows and develops.

It is the fundamental principle of the Foundation that sound money encourages harmonious interaction between individuals, which is the essential element of a society built upon free-markets and a rule of law that protects property rights. This agreeable result is a noble goal and the aspiration of the GoldMoney Foundation.

Given that harmonious interaction between people is dependent upon sound money and good monetary policy, it is important to make available as widely as possible, informative educational material about the role of gold and silver as money and currency and their importance to society.

Activities of the GoldMoney Foundation

To fulfil its purpose, the GoldMoney Foundation focuses upon the monetary role of gold and silver and their unique usefulness as money and currency. Its activities include:

• Conduct and sponsor monetary conferences,
• Produce videos and publish educational material on monetary matters, and
• Carry out other activities suitable to the achievement of its objectives.

Opportunities to Assist the GoldMoney Foundation

We view this website as a forum to provide information about the GoldMoney Foundation, its goals and its achievements. We will also alert you about upcoming events sponsored by the Foundation.

We welcome your feedback. For example, if you have projects in mind that could further the goals and aims of the Foundation, please let us know. The Foundation is always looking for worthy projects to advance the role of gold and silver as money and currency.

While GoldMoney Network Ltd. will continue to support the Foundation’s activities, donations, endowments and grants are welcome from individuals and supporting organisations that share the principles and goals of the GoldMoney Foundation and would like to help it achieve its objectives.

http://goldmoney.com/goldmoney-foundation.html