The inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force   (FATF), is reviewing Panama’s financial sector.

Last week a team conducted a "pre-evaluation" visit in which the group explained the process that will be followed in May 2017 when a team will arrive in Panama to examine the effectiveness and implementation of the legal framework for the prevention of money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The team will discuss its findings in a plenary meeting of the group in December 2017.

The evaluation will verify the compliance and the effectiveness of the legal framework, which was endorsed by the Financial Action Task Force in February 2016, when it voted to remove Panama from a grey list.

Panama was included on the grey list of the task force in June 2014 after an assessment revealed deficiencies in its legal framework.

At that time, the government agreed on a plan of action to correct the vulnerabilities, which, according to the plenary of the task force, was achieved.

Since then the revelations of the activities of Panama law  firm Mossack Fonseca, in the Panama Papers have drawn further attention to the country, and France moved to re-list Panama,

The Panama  government set up a special committee to make recommendations, but that ran into problems when two international experts who had been invited to participate, resigned, claiming lack of transparency and government interference.