Overview
1. Summary
Independence is the ability of New Zealanders to democratically exercise sovereign control and make decisions without undue influence over all aspects of the country- political, legal, regulatory, economic, social, and foreign affairs. Over the last few years, there have been a number of challenges to New Zealand’s independence- the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, Five Eyes intelligence sharing, and the Foreign Tax Account Compliance Act.
The Internet Party will take steps to prevent the erosion of New Zealand’s independence, consistent with any obligations already accepted internationally.
This policy does not consider constitutional issues related to New Zealand’s independence, such as the head of state or flag.
2. Problems identified
2.1 Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA)
In an increasingly interconnected world, regional pacts to promote greater economic integration could be a positive but only if it is forged in New Zealand’s interests.
The TPPA will not be just another free trade agreement. Only five of the 29 TPPA chapters deal with traditional free trade issues such as tariffs and non-tariff barriers. It will reach far ‘beyond the border’ into areas such as investment, competition, regulations, environment, and labour.
All negotiating texts and other materials such as proposals of each Government are secret. Public discussions have had to rely on leaked texts while select corporate stakeholders, particularly in the US, not only have confidential access but also are playing an active role in creating the proposed text of the agreement.
Expert analysis of leaked negotiating texts of chapters dealing with ‘beyond the border’ areas have shown the potential for deep negative impacts on New Zealand and others.
Negotiating ‘beyond the border’ type issues in secret is justified by governments as standard practice for free trade agreements. However, these issues are far beyond typical areas included in free trade agreements. The right standard for judging the TPPA secrecy is open discussions held in multilateral fora like the World Trade Organisation and the World Intellectual Property Office.
The TPPA has become a tool for a country’s corporate interests to negotiate with foreign governments. While free trade agreements were primarily government-to-government negotiations with balanced commercial and public policy interests, the TPPA represents narrow corporate profit maximisation objectives taking on ‘partner’ governments by constraining their future domestic law-making abilities. This represents an unprecedented challenge to sovereignty and independence.
One particular concern is the proposed Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions which will enable overseas corporates to sue the New Zealand government for millions in damages in secretive offshore tribunals. Under ISDS, foreign investors could claim that new laws and regulations introduced by the New Zealand government have breached their special rights under the TPPA and seriously undermined the value of their investments.
There is no evidence that ISDS is actually required to increase investment or that it even works to do so.
Another area of concern from the perspective of New Zealand’s independence is ‘regulatory coherence’. The stated aim is to achieve greater domestic coordination of regulations and increase transparency within economically integrated countries or regions.
However, in combination with other TPPA provisions, regulatory coherence has been subverted by narrow corporate interests to advance their interests while neutering competing national priorities and democratic political institutions.
None of the lessons and shortcomings of the TPPA are being recognised or accepted. Even the potential gains from the TPPA are increasingly becoming illusionary, for example increased access for New Zealand’s agricultural produce are being threatened by bilateral US-Japan negotiations.
There is a danger that the nascent TISA (Trade in Services Agreement) will turn into another TPPA.
2.2 Five Eyes and GCSB
The GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau) is New Zealand’s intelligence organisation in the Five Eyes arrangement, originating from World War II arrangements.
Following the Kitteridge Report that found the GCSB “may” have illegally spied on at least 88 New Zealanders, the Government amended GCSB’s governing law. While claiming to be minor amendments, the GCSB’s role and powers have been vastly expanded. Other countries are debating and re-examining their spying organisations in the wake of mass surveillance and undermining of trust exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. New Zealand has rushed through amendments under urgency with limited debate.
Additionally, the Government intends to use secret orders to selectively impose interception capability requirements for surveillance agencies. Increasingly, the negative impact on New Zealand’s growing economic relationship with China from the GCSB spying on behalf of the NSA (United States’ National Security Agency) needs to be questioned.
Edward Snowden has revealed that New Zealand was one of the countries that the NSA provided “legal guidance” on how to degrade its legal protections and enable mass surveillance. It is highly likely that last year’s law changes governing the GCSB and telecommunications interception were influenced by the NSA to align it with the other Five Eyes partners, undermining New Zealand’s sovereignty.
2.3 FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act)
Under US tax law, ‘US persons’ are generally required to report and pay taxes on income from all sources (as opposed to a residency-based approach used by other countries). The US Congress enacted FATCA to make it more difficult for US taxpayers to conceal assets held in offshore accounts and shell corporations, and thus to recoup federal tax revenues.
This US law imposed on New Zealand banks and other financial institutions will require breaching the Privacy and Human Rights Acts. The Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill, expected to come in force from 1 July 2014, will require them to audit, gather and report to Inland Revenue information on all accounts that at any time during the year has a value of $50,000 or more held by US persons.
While FATCA is a US law covering ‘US persons’, the term is misleading in that it includes New Zealand citizens and residents, for example dual US/New Zealand citizens, New Zealand spouses of US citizens, and those born in New Zealand to a US citizen. It will also require those not covered by the law to prove that they are not within its ambit.
Besides the unilateral erosion of New Zealand’s independence and overriding protections New Zealanders have under the Privacy and Human Rights Acts, FATCA imposes costs on banks and other financial institutions. The NZ Bankers Association estimates cost to New Zealand banks of $100 million to comply. Globally, it imposes a cost of compliance for the benefit of the US, with estimates at between US$ 10 and US$ 20 for every single tax dollar the US retrieves.
3. Relevant Data/Research
3.1 Importance of Independence
Independence is the ability of New Zealanders to democratically exercise sovereign control and make decisions without undue influence over all aspects of the country- political, legal, regulatory, economic, social, and foreign affairs. Independence is one of three fundamental strengths put forward by the country in the campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council 2015-16. The other two are Integrity and Innovation.
New Zealand has a proud history of taking independent positions on issues of national importance, from its anti-nuclear and anti-apartheid stances to giving women the vote. These are part of the country’s sense of self and national identity, a shared understanding of who we are and what distinguishes us from other countries.
3.2 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement
3.2.1 Background
The TPP has its origins in the 2005 Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement amongst Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore. Currently, the negotiating countries are additionally Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam.
In November 2011, the leaders of the then nine TPP countries announced “the achievement of the broad outlines of an ambitious, 21st-century Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that will enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, promote innovation, economic growth and development, and support the creation and retention of jobs.”
There are several reasons why plurilateral regional agreements, treaties amongst a limited number of countries, are being favoured over multilateral treaties. One is that the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organisation has stalled. Another is America’s Pacific Century which is the geopolitical pivot of the United States to the Asia-Pacific region. A third is the ability to overcome the trade focus of the World Trade Organisation to go ‘ beyond the border’ into areas such as investment, competition, regulations, environment, and labour as well as promoting regional economic integration.
3.2.2 Not just a trade agreement
The TPP is often referred to as a trade agreement in New Zealand. In contrast, countries such as the United States consistently refer to it as a partnership amongst countries. Reportedly, “only five of 29 chapters are about what most people recognise as trade negotiations… But this is mainly about domestic laws. It restricts the powers of governments to regulate in ways that might adversely affect the freedoms of foreign companies… It is the rights of government that are up for negotiation.” (emphasis added)
Typical free trade issues included in the TPP include tariffs, rules of origin, phytosanitary standards, and customs. According to the US Trade Representative, the scope of the TPP goes beyond free trade agreements to include Competition, E-Commerce, Environment, Financial Services, Government Procurement, Intellectual Property, Investments, Labour, Legal Issues, and Telecommunications.
Two areas that make the TPP not just another free trade agreement and have attracted significant criticisms are ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) and regulatory coherence.
A leaked negotiation text from June 2012 shows that an investor from any of the TPP countries “will be able to sue the New Zealand government for millions in damages in secretive offshore tribunals. Under ISDS foreign investors could claim that new laws and regulations introduced by the New Zealand government have breached their special rights under the TPP and seriously undermined the value of their investments.”
“…if New Zealand did get sued, then millions of taxpayer dollars would be spent defending the case. [The] average cost of defending an ISDS case is US$8 million, but can easily exceed US$30 million as well as many millions more if we lost… Just the threat of a long, expensive dispute is designed to get governments to back off. If New Zealand signs the TPP we’ll face the prospect of a government scared of making a stand, massive unnecessary spending of tax payer money on law suits, or both.”
“The Australian government refused to include ISDS in its free trade deal with the US in 2005, and it has an investor-state policy not to sign up to any more ISDS obligations including in the TPP.”
An open letter from 100 jurists in TPP countries called on “negotiators to make sure the TPP doesn’t give investors the right to sue governments directly” as it “is not a fair, independent, and balanced method for the resolution of disputes between sovereign nations and private investors.”
Regulatory coherence acts to restrict independence more subtly. The stated aim is “to achieve greater domestic coordination of regulations, increase transparency and stakeholder engagement, and improve competitiveness and the ability of small and medium businesses to engage in international trade.”
In practice, the TPP “aims to frame how governments make their domestic policy and regulatory decisions, alongside more extensive rules that constrain the substance of those decisions. These ‘disciplines’ will, in practice, empower commercial players and advance their interests, and marginalise competing national priorities, advocates and agencies, including democratic political institutions. This additional dimension makes the TPP a threat to national sovereignty over decision making processes and institutions.”
“In controversial areas of policy the TPP could therefore provide multiple opportunities for obstruction and delay, the diversion of resources, and brinkmanship by the affected industry, its commercial and academic allies, and patron states. More extensive substantive rules would reduce governments’ regulatory options. Because criteria like evidence-based decisions and thresholds, such as necessity tests are intrinsically contestable the judgments of policy makers are fertile ground for challenge.”
3.2.3 Secrecy and ratification
All negotiating texts and other materials such as proposals of each Government are in confidence. Unusually, they will be kept as such for four years after the TPP comes into force or is abandoned.
Public discussions have therefore had to rely on leaked texts, for example Wikileaks published the entire Intellectual Property chapter in November 2013 and the Environment Chapter in January 2014. Wikileaks has also published the negotiating position of each country across 14 chapters of the TPP text.
The US Trade Representative has given secret access to the TPP text to 600 corporate trade advisors and pressure group lobbyists while not allowing general access to members of Congress or the public. It is widely believed that such corporate interests play an instrumental role in writing the United States’ negotiating positions and draft TPP text.
Protests against the secrecy of the negotiating process have been a consistent criticism of the TPP, for example by It’s Our Future. Polling shows a large majority of New Zealanders find the secrecy unacceptable.
In New Zealand, the Cabinet has the power to approve the country’s intention to adopt an international treaty such as the TPP. Fifteen days after presenting it to Parliament, the Government can ratify the TPP by executive decision. Regular law making provisions are likely to be used for legislation to implement the provisions of the TPP, including calling for submissions to respective Select Committees.
Unlike New Zealand, in the United States the executive (the President) does not have the power to ratify international treaties. The so-called fast track negotiating authority for trade agreements granted by Congress to the President allows this, with Congress limited to approval or disapproval but not amending it or delaying it beyond 90 days. There are several moves to stop Congress from giving such fast track authority to the President, such as Stop Fast Track.
3.2.4 TPP impact
Based on leaked texts, there has been widespread opposition to most TPP chapters that deal with matters beyond the border. Examples of the impact on New Zealand and restricting the country’s ability to independently make laws and rules include:
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Copyright: Extend copyright term by 20 years to life + 70; adopt criminal sanctions; ban parallel importing; stop circumvention of digital locks; restrict fair use; regulate temporary copies.
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Software Patents: Reversing the exclusion of computer software from patentability.
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Medicines: Increase costs and reduce access to affordable medicines by constraining PHARMAC; “Big Pharma” using Investor-state Dispute Settlement processes to block cigarette plain packaging and extending drug monopolies; and undermine public healthcare.
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Financial Services: Restrictions on scope and nature of domestic financial regulation.
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Environment: Too little to offset the harms caused by other chapters with no mandated environmental protections at all.
3.2.5 Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)
TISA is being described as a new threat being negotiated by governments in secret, particularly to public services.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade describes TISA as an “initiative [that] provides New Zealand with a further opportunity to advance our on-going efforts to lower trade barriers for New Zealand services exporters at the WTO and through free trade agreements. Through the TISA negotiations, New Zealand stands to benefit from the development of new and enhanced rules that promote transparency and services trade, and from securing improved access to TISA markets, which account for approximately 80 per cent of New Zealand’s commercial services exports.”
Negotiations have been going on for over a year but there is limited information available publicly. Given the secretive nature of the negotiations and the intention to bring in “new” and “enhanced” provisions over those in the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), there is a degree of suspicion of TISA turning into another TPP. There is also opposition to using the approach of profit maximisation to corporates as the fundamental basis for pushing extreme deregulation and withdrawing oversight.
3.3 Five Eyes and GCSB
3.3.1 Background
The Five Eyes- USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand- is a multilateral agreement for intelligence sharing. It has its roots in the UKUSA Agreement of World War II, in the sharing of military signals intelligence. The role of New Zealand in the Five Eyes, as a British dominion with second tier status, was formalised when the agreement was updated in 1955.
The GCSB, which is the New Zealand organisation in the Five Eyes arrangement, was formed in 1977 but its functions and activities were kept secret. The existence of the GCSB was first officially publicly disclosed in 1980 and its role in signal intelligence in 1984. The statutory basis for the GCSB started on 1 April 2003 when the GCSB Act took effect.
Investigative journalist Nicky Hager’s book Secret Power, published in 1996, was the first real public record of the GCSB’s work. He described the operation of ECHELON, a signals intelligence and analysis network, including the GCSB’s facilities at Waihopai and Tangimoana.
So secretive was the existence and operations of the GCSB that then Prime Minister David Lange wrote in the forward to Secret Power, “An astonishing number of people have told him things that I, as Prime Minister in charge of the Intelligence agencies, was never told… It is an outrage that I and other ministers were told so little… it was not until I read this book that I had any idea that we had been committed to an international integrated electronic network.” This is the same Prime Minister who approved about $50 million spend to set up the spy base at Waihopai in the first place.
3.3.2 Role and Activities of the GCSB
GCSB’s operations have expanded greatly from its military signals intelligence collection and sharing roots to a vision of “complete mastery of the internet”.
Many experts have asserted that the GCSB’s major task is industrial and economic espionage and has been so from the ECHELON days. It is now, in effect, “ an outpost of the NSA in the South Pacific” with much of its work having no connection at all with New Zealand’s national interest.
Following the ‘ pretty damning’ Kitteridge Report that found the GCSB “may” have illegally spied on at least 88 New Zealanders, the Government rushed through amendments to the law under urgency last year. While claiming to be minor amendments, the GCSB Amendment Bill vastly expanded the legal scope and role of the GCSB to additionally include:
- In addition to national security and international relations, the objectives were expanded to include the “economic well-being of New Zealand.”
- Gather, intercept, and analyse intelligence about all electronic and network infrastructure, including within New Zealand, without a warrant or authorisation.
- Provide assistance to Police, Defence Force, and SIS.
- Allow information “incidentally’ collected to be shared with anyone in New Zealand or overseas.
- Obtain interception warrants for “classes of persons” and, additionally, obtain permission from the Minister in cases for mass interception where it would not otherwise be lawful.
Separately, the role of the GCSB was also expanded by the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act to make decisions about the design and equipment used by all network operators in New Zealand. Some have noted that this provides the GCSB with the ability to formally or informally favour or disallow equipment that is known to be compromised by its Five Eyes partners, including the NSA, or others.
Besides imposing legal requirements, the Government also intends to use secret orders to selectively impose interception capability requirements for surveillance agencies.
There are concerns about the negative impact on New Zealand’s growing economic relationship with China from the GCSB spying on behalf of the NSA. The European Parliament condemned New Zealand for its participation in mass surveillance as part of the Five Eyes and violating the privacy of EU citizens. It is clear that New Zealand via the GCSB has been briefed and is complicit in many of the NSA’s mass surveillance and pervasive monitoring activities globally.
The GCSB provides information via the Five Eyes that aid the United States in killing people using drones overseas. The Government supports the killing of New Zealand citizen Daryl Jones in Yemen by American drones as “an effective way of prosecuting people”. In this particular case, the GCSB passed on information about the “target” but “didn’t supply information that led directly to the death”.
3.3.3 NSA’s Influence on New Zealand’s laws
In written testimony to the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said, “One of the foremost activities of the NSA’s FAD, or Foreign Affairs Division, is to pressure or incentivize EU member states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance.”
“Lawyers from the NSA, as well as the UK’s GCHQ, work very hard to search for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorized by lawmakers. These efforts to interpret new powers out of vague laws is an intentional strategy to avoid public opposition and lawmakers’ insistence that legal limits be respected, effects the GCHQ internally described in its own documents as ‘damaging public debate’.”
Snowden lists a number of countries in which the agency provided “legal guidance” in “recent public memory” including Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and “also faraway New Zealand”.However, there is no more mention of New Zealand in the document or how the agency may have influenced the country’s laws.
“Each of these countries received instruction from the NSA, sometimes under the guise of the US Department of Defense and other bodies, on how to degrade the legal protections of their countries’ communications,” the document says. “The ultimate result of the NSA’s guidance is that the right of ordinary citizens to be free from unwarranted interference is degraded, and systems of intrusive mass surveillance are being constructed in secret within otherwise liberal states, often without the full awareness of the public.”
Snowden said that once the NSA has subverted restrictions against unconstitutional mass surveillance, it “encourages partners to perform access operations”. These are attempts to gain access to bulk communications of major telecommunications providers.
“Sometimes the NSA provides consultation, technology, or even the physical hardware itself for partners to “ingest” these massive amounts of data in a manner that allows processing, and it does not take long to access everything.”
While there is no evidence yet publicly available that the NSA has in fact influenced New Zealand’s surveillance laws, it is highly likely that last year’s law changes governing the GCSB and telecommunications interception were influenced by the NSA to align it with the other Five Eyes partners, undermining New Zealand’s sovereignty.
3.4 FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act)
3.4.1 Background
FATCA is a 2010 United States law that requires ‘US persons’ living overseas and foreign financial institutions (including in New Zealand) to report their financial accounts held outside USA.
Under US tax law, US persons are generally required to report and pay taxes on income from all sources (as opposed to a residency-based approach used by other countries). The US Congress enacted FATCA to make it more difficult for US taxpayers to conceal assets held in offshore accounts and shell corporations, and thus to recoup federal tax revenues.
Failing to comply with FATCA leads to a 30% withholding tax on all US-sourced income which gives it significant leverage for global implementation, including in New Zealand.
This US law would force individual New Zealand financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies, and funds, to enter into an agreement with the IRS (the United States’ tax agency, Internal Revenue Service) to provide the latter with details of US persons’ account details. To avoid the burden of compliance by each New Zealand financial institution, the Government is negotiating an inter-governmental treaty so that reporting is only to Inland Revenue locally.
The Taxation (Annual Rates, Employee Allowances, and Remedial Matters) Bill includes the legislative measures to comply with FATCA and other future foreign account information sharing arrangements. Part 11B of the Bill will require all New Zealand financial institutions to audit, gather and report to Inland Revenue information on all accounts that at any time during the year has a value of $50,000 or more held by US persons. If enacted, it comes into force from 1 July 2014.
Without the law change, banks’ forwarding customers’ details to Inland Revenue and IRS would be in breach of the Privacy and Human Rights Acts. The Privacy Commissioner has not opposed the negotiation of the FATCA inter-governmental treaty with the US, and the amending tax law to implement it.
3.4.2 New Zealanders Included in FATCA
While the US law covers ‘US persons’, the term is misleading in that it includes New Zealand citizens and residents. Besides about 27,000 US citizens and green card holders living in New Zealand, the definition of ‘US persons’ is not limited by citizenship or residence, and includes:
- Dual US/New Zealand citizens
- New Zealand spouses of US citizens
- Those born in the US, but moved to New Zealand as children. Also, a child born to a New Zealander studying or working temporarily in the US automatically becomes a US citizen at birth. No registration or positive claim is required
- Those born in New Zealand to a US parent (even if they have never left New Zealand)
- New Zealanders in areas such as entertainment, sports and business who have previously lived in the US
- Family trusts with even one US person as a beneficiary
- Businesses where a US person has signing authority over an account
- Companies where US persons hold 10% or more of the shares
- Joint beneficiary with a US person of life insurance policy
According to an article in the NZ Council of Civil Liberties, “The IRD has issued compliance instructions to financial institutions as to which accounts must be reported. The reporting is based on indicia which may show that the holder is a US person or that US person has beneficial interest in the account. The indicia, which can found on the IRD’s website, include:
- Indication of a place of birth in the US. (Born in the US but left as a child? Reported).
- Current US phone number, mailing or residential address (Kiwi working or studying temporarily in the US? Reported).
- Standing instructions to transfer funds to a US account. (Send pocket money to your son or daughter studying, working or travelling in the US? Reported).
- An account with an “in care of” or “hold mail” address as the sole address. (Out of NZ for awhile and getting your mail in care of a mate? Reported).”
Additionally, the Bank of New Zealand points out that, “Although FATCA reporting is restricted to US persons/US specified persons whose account values exceed certain thresholds, in order to identify those customers there is an unavoidable impact on customers who are not US persons/US specified person who use New Zealand financial institutions. Specifically, those customers will still have to be asked various questions in order to determine that they are not US persons/US specified persons.”
3.4.3 Other Impacts of FATCA
According to the NZ Bankers Association, FATCA will cost New Zealand banks $100 million to comply. The cost of compliance worldwide has been estimated at between US$ 10 and US$ 20 for every single dollar the IRS retrieves.
While New Zealand inter-governmental treaty is hoping for a reciprocal arrangement with the US, it is likely that FATCA will be a unilateral imposition on New Zealand. Other countries are accepting such US laws, despite calls for protest.
Other countries are considering their own version of FATCA where they have financial leverage, for example China over Hong Kong. A ‘Global FATCA’ could emerge from the Common Reporting Standard being developed by the OECD under the banner Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI). However, unlike FACTA, AEOI is a multilateral negotiation based on a person’s country of residence.
4 Policy Proposals
4.1 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement
It is unlikely that the TPPA will deliver net positive benefits to New Zealand. There is every possibility that there will be significant negative impacts from ‘beyond the border’ areas such as investment, competition, health, copyright, and labour laws. The Internet Party, in recognition of the current state of negotiations, will reset the parameters of New Zealand’s negotiating team to protect the country’s independence and sovereignty.
The Internet Party will immediately widen the access of New Zealand stakeholders to the maximum possible extent consistent with the commitments around secrecy already made to our negotiating partners. At the least, it will match access by US corporate and lobbying interests.
The Internet Party will commit to not using the executive power of Cabinet to ratify the TPPA without an extensive and open public debate about the final text of the agreement as well as usual Parliamentary processes. Objective expert analysis will be commissioned so that people get a thorough understanding of the benefits and costs, tangible and intangible, of the TPPA. If the benefits do not substantially outweigh the costs for New Zealand or compromise our independence, the Internet Party will not support ratification of the TPPA.
The Internet Party will move the power to ratify international treaties such as the TPPA from the executive to Parliament.
4.2 Five Eyes and GCSB
Policy initiatives, including from the perspective of protecting New Zealand’s independence, have already been detailed in the Internet Party’s Privacy and Internet Freedom Policy.
4.3 FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act)
The Internet Party believes that FATCA is an unacceptable, unilateral imposition of US law on New Zealand and New Zealanders. Besides overriding the Privacy and Human Rights Acts, banks and other financial institutions will have to bear the inefficient monitoring of US taxation. The New Zealand Government, in the name of reducing the compliance burden on New Zealand financial institutions, has been co-opted by the US Government.
The Internet Party will use the Government’s diplomatic channels to reach out to other countries unhappy with FATCA to forge a common response. The possibility of taking the US to an international dispute or judicial forum like the World Trade Organisation will be investigated.
In addition, support will be extended to multilateral discussions under the OECD and G20 as a more balanced, preferred approach to reporting of foreign financial accounts.