The 6th Anti-Money Laundering directive (6AMLD) came into effect on December 3, 2020 and must be implemented by regulated entities in the European Union by June 3, 2021. After the 5th AMLD introduced so many fundamental changes to the regulatory landscape, most notably introducing a focus on ultimate beneficial owners and strengthening the need for a Know Your Business offering, will the 6th be so impactful?
AMLD6 harmonizes the definition of money laundering across the bloc with the primary aim to remove any loopholes in national legislations. The new list of 22 predicate offences supports this new definition and member states must criminalize them. The inclusion of cyber-crime as a predicate offense is significant since it is the first time it has been featured in this context in an EU money laundering directive.
Also, 6AMLD will extend criminal liability to allow for the punishment of legal persons, such as companies or partnerships. The new rules mean that a legal person will be considered culpable for the crime of money laundering if it is established that they failed to prevent a “directing mind” from within the company from carrying out the illegal activity. Practically, the new rules will place AML responsibility on management employees along with employees acting separately.
During the upcoming implementation period, obligated firms should seek to develop an understanding of the adjusted regulatory scope that 6AMLD will bring, including new predicate offenses that must be monitored and the new risk environment in which they will be operating. In addition to managing their AML resources and training compliance staff, firms will need to review their technology deployment in order to ensure that they have the capability to meet their new transaction monitoring and screening obligations.
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Source: www.caseware.com