In recent years, measures aimed at combatting tax evasion have become a major focus of governments worldwide. As a result, cooperation between tax authorities has become critical in the fight against tax evasion and in protecting the integrity of tax systems. A key development of that cooperation is exchange of financial account information between tax authorities through the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) and more recently, the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”). Bank of Valletta p.l.c and its Subsidiaries are subject to both FATCA and CRS and accordingly are obliged to provide the Maltese tax authorities financial account information on their clients.