New Money Laundering Decree For Free Trade Zones In Uruguay

Uruguay has updated their anti-money laundering and terrorism laws affecting the free trade zones in the country.

The Uruguayan Parliament has issued a new decree No. 379/018 on 12 November 2018 that updates Law 19.574, which is known as the anti-money laundering law for the free trade zones. The first changes to this law were put into place on 10 January 2018 and covered anti-money laundering and terrorism financing regime and also included new obligations for professionals and organizations. Now this new decree will make the rules applicable to non- financial sectors and put the obligation on them to report suspicious money laundering activities of clients.

The decree contains 14 chapters that are divided into two parts, one is general rules for all of the obligated parties and the other contains specific regulations for these types of activities:

casinos, real estate, lawyers, scribes, accountants, auctioneers, merchants of antiques, works of art, metals and precious stones, free trade zone users, service providers, non-profit organizations. The new regulation states that that operators, direct and indirect users of the free zones are obliged to report any unusual or suspicious activities, whether or not they carried out. Any actions without obvious economic or legal justification and are raised with unusual or unjustified complexity, must be reported. These businesses but also have information about their clients and comply with compliance procedures.

This decree was a created because of international requirements that are GAFI recommendations. It states that countries should include these obligations to report by companies that are in non-financial sectors as well in their anti-money laundering laws.

What businesses need to do

Businesses in the free zones will have to follow due diligence on their customers. They will have to obtain, update and keep information about current and potential clients in order to help prevent money laundering. Companies will have to designate a...