Tuesday, 19th December 2017
Political agreement reached on 5AMLD
The European Commission issued a press release which includes a factsheet and which states that the Council of the EU and the European Parliament have reached political agreement on the proposed 5AMLD. The European Parliament also issued a press release. The text of 5AMLD has not yet issued but it appears that
- Corporate Beneficial Ownership (BO) Registers will be public
- Trust BO Registers will be accessible to competent authorities, FIUs, the professional sectors subject to AML rules (banks, lawyers and so on) and will be accessible to other persons who can demonstrate a legitimate interest. When a trust is a beneficial owner of a company, access to
this information can be requested. - The national BO Registers will be interconnected directly. Member States will have to introduce verification mechanisms to help improve the accuracy of the information and the reliability of these registers.
- Member States will have limited ability to allow the anonymous use of electronic money products
- AML rules will be extended to virtual currency exchange service providers, tax related services, letting agents, art dealers, electronic wallet providers
- European “politically exposed person” will be subject to same due diligence as those from outside of EU
- Protection for whistleblowers
- Entities will be obliged to apply systematic enhanced controls on the financial transactions from and to high risk third countries (as identified in the EU Commission list). The list will include third-countries with low transparency on beneficial ownership information, no appropriate and dissuasive sanctions or which do not cooperate nor exchange information.
For further information please contact Paula Reid or Nollaig Greene.
Date published: 19 December 2017
