There was white smoke at the Council of the EU on Friday 15 December, for the fifth anti-money laundering directive, which remained in suspense pending the green light from the Germans.
Parliament was not prepared to accept a step backwards over the rules on banks' vigilance towards politically exposed persons (PEP) (see EUROPE 11926). Germany ultimately agreed to the status quo, on condition that the revision clause contained an obligation for the Commission to assess the proportionality of the measures concerning PEPs, two years after the transposition date of the text. The transposition period will be set at 18 months (other than for the provisions related to the transparency of trusts, on which it will be a little longer).
The Council put this offer to Parliament on Friday and, by the time we went to press, the ALDE, EPP and S&D groups had already pledged their support for the agreement.
For the remainder, according to our information, the transparency of trusts has indeed been limited to communicating data only to individuals able to demonstrate a "legitimate interest". The MEPs succeeded in obtaining a definition of this "legitimate interest", which reportedly refers explicitly to NGOs and journalists. However, this definition is not contained in an article, but a recital, meaning it does not have exactly the same binding value.
Parliament wanted to make it impossible for senior managers to be able to be identified as the beneficial owners of trusts or shell companies. It did not hold sway on this, but has managed to ensure that if the beneficial owner cannot be found and the administrator is in his or her place, this will be referred to in the register that is supposed to contain information on beneficial owners.
Foreign companies will not be covered by the directive, despite Parliament's attempts to bring in an obligation to register an entity if it is owned by European. However, this possibility has been brought into the revision clause. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)