I was never good at English literature but wasn’t it William Shakespeare who uttered the immortal words: “to stock or not to stock, that’s the question”? De Beers diamond sales in the first half of 2005 came to $3.22 billion, which was 7% beyond the sales of first half 2004 of $2.98 billion. But the increase of sales didn’t provide much... Read More...

Based on rudimentary arithmetic, each of the well over 500 clients of Diamdel worldwide will get an average of about $1 million a year worth of diamonds from the DTC’s rough trading subsidiary. Many clients, if not most, will get substantially less. In spite of these less than impressive averages... Read More...

The Government of Sierra Leone, at the highest level, has decided to internationally tender the Independent Diamond Valuer’s contract. The contract with the current valuator, Martyn Marriott from Diamond Counsellor’s International, has expired and in the past few months there have been many discussions in Freetown on... Read More...

The Israel Money Laundering Prohibition Authority (IMPA) has notified the Israeli diamond industry of its intention to implement those of the FATF 40 Recommendations and its 8 Special Recommendations which apply to designated non-financial businesses and professions, including the... Read More...

The news that after two convictions by different courts the State Bank of India in Antwerp has been cleared of all its money laundering charges is certainly a cause for a sigh of relief. It isn’t that no money laundering had taken place—the facts speak for themselves – but it had more to do with the responsibility and liability of... Read More...

Ian Smillie, the always somber and serious looking peace activist, has just completed an extensive presentation on the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI) to a working group of the Kimberley Process in Moscow. It may be recalled that this joint initiative, launched in late 2004 by De Beers, Global Witness and Partnership Africa... Read More...

Consider a hypothetical question:  Will you buy diamonds from Frank T? Frank T. is exploring for diamonds in Sierra Leone. His company’s diamond concession areas exceed 12,000 square kilometers (almost half of the country’s diamond fields) and it seems a sure bet that Frank may well become a major source of high quality... Read More...

Dear Sir, Allow me to give you an international perspective on the U.S. Treasury’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing rules for the diamond and jewelry industry. Last year... Read More...

Banks provide the oxygen the diamond business needs to operate. The positions of the diamond bankers tend to be analyzed in a similar fashion as U.S. financial market players interpret every word uttered by Federal Reserve chairman Alan... Read More...

The European Union was in the vanguard of both the Kimberley Process and the enactment of anti-money laundering compliance rules. The Belgian government, as a responsible member of the European single market, passed all the... Read More...