The European Commission is continuing to track down cases of poor application of EU anti-money laundering rules. On Thursday 2 July, it referred Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failure to fully transpose the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, requesting financial penalties.
Member States had until 26 June 2017 to implement the rules of the Directive. After assessing the measures notified by these Member States, the Commission has identified shortcomings in the transposition of the Directive as regards betting and gambling legislation for Austria, mechanisms under which the Financial Intelligence Units exchange documents and information for Belgium and the information to be provided on the beneficial ownership of corporate and other legal entities for the Netherlands.
Six other countries pinpointed
On the same day, the Commission also sent a letter of formal notice to Luxembourg concerning the incorrect transposition of the provisions on the exchange of information between Financial Intelligence Units, another to Slovakia regarding the provisions on whistleblower protection and another to Slovenia on the need to adopt measures to prevent convicted persons from exercising managerial functions.
It has also sent reasoned opinions to the Czech Republic, Denmark and Italy for incomplete transposition of the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)