Mauritius FSC Revises Money Laundering Codes

by Lorys Charalambous, for LawAndTax-News.com, Cyprus

28 July 2005

The Mauritius Financial Services Commission has issued new versions of three Codes on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, originally issued in 2003.

The Code on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing intended for Management Companies; http://www.fscmauritius.org/download/mc.pdf

The Code on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing intended for Insurance Entities; and http://www.fscmauritius.org/download/ie.pdf

The Code on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing intended for Investment Businesses; http://www.fscmauritius.org/download/ib.pdf

The Codes have been revised to meet new national and international anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing initiatives.

The main changes brought to the Codes include the following:

• the substantive provisions of the Codes have been reviewed to embrace the concept of Customer Due Diligence as set out in the Revised recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force;
• the Codes have been clarified to indicate situations where licence holding companies are required to apply enhanced due diligence procedures and situations where they may apply reduced or simplified due diligence procedures;
• the requirements regarding introduced business have been realigned with international standards; and
• new provisions have been introduced in the Codes with regard to omnibus accounts.

The revised Codes will come into operation on 01 August 2005. All non-bank financial institutions to whom these Codes apply must take necessary steps to implement the revised requirements effectively.

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