With some estimating that the money laundered globally each year amounts to 2-5% of global GDP, the European Parliament last week voted in favour of new money laundering rules.
The proposed new rules, contained in the Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD), provide that:
- a public central register is to be maintained in each EU country, listing information on the ultimate beneficial owners of all sorts of legal arrangements, including companies, foundations, holdings and trusts. These registers would be interconnected across the EU and, according to MEPs, would be "publicly available following prior identification of the person wishing to access the information through basic online registration".
- banks, financial institutions, auditors, lawyers, accountants, tax advisors and real estate agents, among others, will be required to be more vigilant about suspicious transactions made by their clients. Casinos are included in the scope of the draft rules, but other gambling services posing a low risk may be excluded by member states.
- the rules on “politically-exposed persons”, i.e. people at a higher than usual risk of corruption due to the political positions they hold, are extended to "domestic" politically-exposed persons. These people are those who are or have been "entrusted by the member state with prominent public functions", such as heads of state, members of government, supreme court judges, and members of parliaments.
The aim of the proposals is twofold: to make make dodgy deals harder to hide; and to tackle tax evasion.
Contact Lewis Nedas’ Criminal Lawyers in London
If you have been charged with maney laundering and require specialist legal advice, please contact our solicitors Jeffrey Lewis or Siobhain Egan on 020 7387 2032 or complete our online enquiry form here.
This blog post is intended as a news item only - no connection between Lewis Nedas and the parties concerned is intended or implied
