2024-08-22 01:09:32
At the extraordinary session of the RA National Assembly on June 30, 2021, the RA Law “On Making Amendments and Additions to the RA Law on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing” was adopted in its second reading (hereinafter: the Law). The law was promulgated on July 16 of this year and will enter into force on July 26 of this year.
The main changes made in the law are:
The authority to suspend suspicious transactions and business relations was transferred from the Council of the Central Bank of RA to the Financial Monitoring Center of the Central Bank of RA (hereinafter referred to as the FCA), the suspension application process was also changed, taking into account the need to assist in the further process of initiating a criminal case and seizing property.
The range of persons with political influence has been expanded, including local high-ranking officials, persons performing significant functions in international organizations, their family members or persons closely related to them. These individuals are considered high risk for money laundering or terrorist financing (AML/CFT) and additional due diligence is required when entering into transactions or establishing a business relationship with these individuals.
The concept of the beneficial owner has been clarified, as well as the requirement for the reporting person to document and maintain the necessary steps, conclusions and their justifications in order to identify and verify the identity of the beneficial owner of the client.
A number of changes are related to the correction of deficiencies that appeared during the implementation of the Law, in particular, a prohibition was established for reporting persons to inform clients or other persons about the receipt of instructions from the Federal Tax Service, the said prohibition aims to ensure the non-disclosure of the instructions of the Federal Tax Service, including suspicions to third parties.
The definition of the concept of “money transfer” was given as a transaction that is carried out through a financial institution on behalf of the person making the transfer, with the aim of making a certain amount available to the recipient of the transfer in that or another financial institution, regardless of the fact that the person making the transfer and the recipient of the transfer are the same person. The duty of the financial institution performing the money transfer to reject all transfers that do not meet the requirements established by the Law is also provided for.
Some changes aim to ensure compliance of RA legislation with international standards. Amendments and additions are planned to ensure compliance with FATF Recommendations 1, 10, 12, 13, 18, 21 and 25, which have been carried both substantively and by FATF. nature of full compliance of the Law with the wording provided by the methodology. Other non-essential technical changes were also made in the law.
You can learn more about the changes in the law by following this link.