Jersey To Amend Anti-Money Laundering Legislation

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

09 September 2009

The Jersey Financial Services Commission on September 7 published a consultation paper disclosing proposed amendments to the Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008.

The Order requires businesses within its scope to apply customer due diligence measures, to keep records, and to have policies and procedures in place to prevent and detect money laundering and terrorist financing.

Businesses that are covered by the Order include banks, investment businesses, trust companies, lawyers, accountants, and estate agents.

The main purpose of the new draft Money Laundering (Amendment No. 4) (Jersey) Order is to deal with some of the technical points that have been raised in a recent review of Jersey’s framework to prevent and detect money laundering and terrorist financing by the International Monetary Fund, the Jersey Financial Services Commission explained on Monday.

The IMF’s review has now been completed, and according to the FSC, a report is expected shortly.

Among the proposed amendments, the paper also considers the possibility of extending power to the Minister for Treasury & Resources to apply countermeasures, where this may address a particular risk of money laundering or terrorist financing.

The main effects of Amendment No. 4 would be to:

  • Clarify the application of customer due diligence measures to trusts and other legal arrangements;
  • Clearly set out the records that a Money Laundering Compliance Officer and Money Laundering Reporting Officer must have access to in order to carry out their statutory functions;
  • Require particular attention to be paid to implementing policies and procedures that are sufficient to prevent and detect money laundering and terrorist financing in subsidiaries and branches that are situated in countries and territories that do not, or insufficiently apply, the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations;
  • Restate the requirement that customer information must always be collected before a relationship is established - where a customer is introduced by one business to another; and
  • Amend the scope of some of the concessions that may be used when applying due diligence measures to a customer who is considered to present a low risk of money laundering or terrorist financing.

The proposed amendments have been discussed with the Commission’s Steering Group for the Prevention and Detection of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. Comment is invited from interested parties until October 11.

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