"Four countries named on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's list of tax havens have pledged to commit to an exchange of information with the body, OECD head Angel Gurria said Tuesday.

"The four jurisdictions have now made full commitment to exchange information," Gurria said at a press conference in Paris. Uruguay, Costa Rica, the Philippines and Malaysia are now off the OECD's black list of "jurisdictions that have not committed to the internationally agreed tax standards," Gurria said. [The Wall Street Journal]

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that "The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Friday that it regretted Switzerland's decision to veto part of the OECD's budget in a dispute over bank secrecy in the Alpine tax haven.

World leaders agreed at a G20 summit last week to crack down on tax fraud and asked the OECD to publish lists of tax havens. Switzerland landed on a list of financial centres that have yet to deliver on pledges to meet international standards of bank information disclosure.

"The OECD acted in good faith," OECD chief Angel Gurria said in a letter to Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz, a copy of which was released to journalists. [Reuters]

Switzerland has expressed its disapproval of being targetted as a tax haven by refusing to authorise a budget contribution to the OECD....

'There are no 'black lists' and the OECD did not include or 'threaten to include' Switzerland on any black list,' Mr Gurria wrote, according to a statement made available by the OECD.

'We only shared the criteria that have been approved by our committees and the jurisdictions that were adopting or not the OECD standard,' he said. [Straits Times]