Changes To The Anti-Money Laundering Legislation

There is an initiative to introduce several changes to the anti-money laundering legislation (with proposed effectiveness as of March 1, 2018), by virtue of which customer due diligence requirements are to be modified.

The Parliament has been debating the Government proposal seeking to transpose the fourth AML Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 20, 2015. The vast majority of amendments that are proposed to be effective as of March 1, 2018 concern Act No. 297/2008 Coll. on Protection against Laundering the Proceeds of Criminal Activities and on Protection against Terrorist Financing and on the Amendment and Supplement of Certain Acts, as amended. The amendments of other affected acts are proposed to become effective as of July 1, 2018.

The proposal calls for minimum actions that "obliged persons" (such as banks, financial institutions, auditors, accountants and a number of other persons) should take within simplified customer due diligence. Under general customer due diligence, obliged persons would be required to examine the beneficial owners of the client and whether or not the client or beneficial owner is an internationally sanctioned person or politically exposed person. In business relationships with a politically exposed person, the obliged person would be required to conduct enhanced customer due diligence. The proposal also includes the recommendation that the definition of politically...