Money laundering bill delay spells trouble

Greece and Romania have been referred to the European Court for not adopting the European Union directive against money laundering.

All EU member-states had a deadline of June 26, 2017 to implement the directive against the legalization of revenues from illegal activities into national legislation, but Greece failed to do so. Still, the directive is expected to be adopted in Greece soon, as a bill to that effect has already been submitted to the competent parliamentary committee for financial affairs.

The Greek government has been asked to strengthen the risk assessment obligation for banks, lawyers and accountants; to set clear transparency requirements about beneficial ownership for companies; to facilitate cooperation and exchange of information between financial intelligence units from different memberstates to identify and follow suspicious transfers of money to prevent and detect money laundering or terrorist financing; to establish a coherent policy toward non-EU countries that have deficient anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing rules; and to reinforcing the sanctioning powers of competent authorities.

The Commission has also proposed a further directive to member-states, aimed at ensuring a high level of safeguards for financial flows from high-risk third countries.