Money laundering: Malta, Luxembourg
BRUSSELS: The European Commission on Thursday stepped up legal action against Malta and Luxembourg for not fully applying European Union rules to prevent money laundering at banks and through companies.
They are among several EU states where banks have been embroiled in money laundering scandals, but they have failed to strengthen their rules to counter financial crime, according to the EU Commission.
Malta has been subject to a rarelyused disciplinary procedure after serious shortcomings emerged in its supervision of Pilatus Bank, an international lender based on the island that was shut down this week by the European Central Bank over money laundering and fraud allegations.
The lender had received a clean sheet from Maltese authorities despite allegations of processing corrupt payments for senior Azeri and Maltese figures by investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed a year ago by a car bomb.
There is no proven link between her murder and the reports she wrote about the bank. Maltese authorities only took measures against the bank after its chairman was charged with financial crimes in the United States.
Following an investigation by the European Banking Authority, the bloc’s watchdog, the Commission said on Thursday it would require changes in the way the Maltese anti-money laundering supervisor, the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU), operates.
EU anti-money laundering rules “need to be enforced with the same high standards across the EU to avoid creating any weak link,” EU justice