Iran Expediency Council Postpones Voting on Palermo Bill

Ahmad Tavakoli, a member of the council, told ISNA after a meeting of the state arbitration body on Saturday that the Council needs to further discuss the bill.

“The Palermo [bill] was discussed in today’s council meeting,” he said.

“Since the issue needs further deliberations, the voting on it has been postponed to the next meeting of the Council,” he said, adding that the next session will be held two weeks later.

The bill is one of four parliamentary bills proposed by the government of Hassan Rouhani for getting Iran out of the global anti-money laundering body’s blacklist.

Only two of them have so far gone into effect and the fate of the last one, a bill amending Iran’s Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) law is also in limbo.

The decision comes as Iran’s deadline for completing reforms to meet conditions for getting out of the FATF’s black list will finish soon.

In its latest meeting late last year, the global standard setter on money laundering had given Iran until the body’s February meeting to fulfill requirements.

The upcoming Financial Action Task Force meeting is to be held in Paris from February 17-22.