Skip to content
shutterstock_1119130634
Home
CDD
AMLD 6 De zesde Anti-witwasrichtlijn

AMLD 6 The Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive

Reading time: 4 min

In short

On November 12, 2018, four months after the fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive came into effect, the sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive was published by the European Union. AMLD6 is intended to complement and strengthen the fourth AMLD by establishing minimum rules on criminal liability for money laundering. It must be transposed into national law by Member States by 3 December 2020. 

The aim of the AMLD6 is to harmonize the laws and sanctions against money laundering in the European Union. 

Among other things, AMLD6 establishes minimum rules for criminal liability for money laundering. The AMLD6 points out that the current criminalization of money laundering in the Member States is too different to combat money laundering in an unambiguous way throughout the European Union. This creates a gap in enforcement and hampers cooperation in several EU Member States on money laundering.

In order to close the gap and promote uniformity, a number of different measures have been taken in AMLD6.

The new measures are: introduction of 22 predicate offenses, liability for legal persons, new investigation possibilities, higher criminal requirements and more powers for the European Banking Authority

  • Greater number of offenses

    The AMLD6 contains a list of 22 predicate offenses that all EU member states have in their national legislation should be punishable, if not yet punishable. Some examples of the 22 offenses are: human trafficking, cybercrime and illegal arms trade. It is striking that there is also one a number of environmental offenses have been designated in the AMLD6. Self-laundering, or self-money laundering, is also punishable. With self-money laundering, a person made a criminal offense for money laundering that the person has obtained with a of predicate offenses.

  • More criminal liability of legal entities

    The AMLD6 extends criminal liability to legal persons (e.g. / limited liability companies) and persons with certain functions within legal persons. This includes persons with a power of representation, decision-making power or power of inspection.

  • Cooperation at an international level

    By introducing predicate offenses, the European Union hopes for more uniformity and more streamlined cooperation between different member states. The European Banking Authority (EBA) will be responsible for coordination between Member States. The EBA will also have more powers to act with national supervisors. The EBA may order investigations in different Member States and should national supervisors do or do not do this sufficiently, EBA may initiate its own investigation and impose sanctions if necessary. To guarantee quality, standards are set for regulators in various countries. The EBA has been given the task of ensuring that there is more cooperation between them.

  • New detection options

    Numerous investigative tools have been made available to regulators that were not previously available. They are expected to use the same detection methods that are used in organized crime. More attention will also have to be paid to the training of personnel.

  • Higher penalty demands

    The criminal requirements for private individuals have been increased and new criminal requirements have been introduced for legal entities. Previously, Member States were allowed to determine themselves the maximum penalty for certain crimes, but the AMLD6 stipulates that all maximum sentences must be at least four years. In addition to these new criminal requirements, EU member states may also impose additional sanctions such as fines, a temporary ban on performing a government job, a temporary ban on social assistance or a temporary ban on carrying out commercial activities. For legal persons, the new measures include forfeiture of commercial activities, exclusion from access to public funding or judicial winding up.

 

Development of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive

The Anti-Money Laundering Guidelines follow each other in rapid succession. We have only just recovered from the implementation of the fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, number five has already entered into force and number six is ​​also coming again.

The fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD4)

The fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive is a tightening of the AMLD. New in this guideline is, among other things, that Dutch politically exposed persons, or PEPs, are automatically seen as clients with an increased risk, as well as their immediate family members. In addition, all institutions subject to the AMLD must conduct a risk assessment for all clients and assign a risk classification based on the results of this assessment.

The much-discussed UBO register is also part of the fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. Because identifying the Ultimate Beneficial Owner (or UBO) is an important part of the CDD process, the UBO register was created to make these checks easier to perform. All UBOs of legal entities within the European Union must be registered in this register. The Netherlands was obliged to have this register online on January 10, 2020, but has not complied with this obligation.

The fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5)

The fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive entered into force in January 2020. This directive mainly concerns Crypto service providers. These are companies that offer services for the exchange of virtual money (so-called cryptos) and ordinary money (also called fiduciary money), but companies that offer crypto custodian wallets have also come under the Wwft since the advent of the fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. The obligations for Crypto service providers include pursuing a CDD policy, monitoring transactions and the duty to report. Crypto service providers are supervised by De Nederlandsche Bank, which enforces the implementation of the Wwft for these companies.

What now?

Criminals are always inventing new ways to launder criminal money, it is estimated that in the Netherlands only 13 billion is laundered every year. The regulations will always have to adapt and expand in order to make new ways of money laundering a criminal offense. Currently, the Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive is on the table, but there are several Member States that want to increase the maximum sentence from a minimum of four years to five years and that PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons) guilty of one of these predicate offenses should to get heavier sentences. People who have been convicted should also be banned from public office and not allowed to make themselves available in political elections is also a sanction that many Member States would like to see in black and white. Is the Seventh Anti-Money Laundering Directive Coming Again? 

 

CDD On Demand as a tool to comply with the Anti-Money Laundering Directive

Using the CDD On Demand solution, a compliance check is performed in a very simple way. All that is needed for this is a name and possibly a date of birth. Based on this, it is checked within a few seconds whether your client poses an increased risk at one of the points checked, so that you may need to perform a more stringent customer due diligence. The CDD On Demand solution also offers the possibility to consult your clients on a daily basis monitoring for new or additional risk factors, you will be notified immediately and CDD On Demand offers the opportunity to try to find the UBO . (Dutch companies only) At the end of the check you will receive a certified report for your own administration. Better be safe than sorry!

Request a trial account