Thursday February 11, 2021
On January 12, 2021, the Council of Ministers adopted a draft law amending the Anti-Money Laundering and Financing Terrorism Law and certain other legal acts presented by the Minister of Finance, Funds and Regional Policy (the “Draft”). .
The draft aims to implement EU legislation that prevents the financial system from being used for money laundering and terrorist financing. It is hoped that this will increase the transparency of information on financial flows and, as a result, strengthen the position of the authorities focused on detecting funds from criminal activities or to finance terrorist activities.
Important changes due to the design
The amendment clarifies the positions with additional responsibilities under the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, regardless of their activities. This contains Add entrepreneurs to the list who do the following:
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Trading or mediation in the trade in works of art, collectibles and antiques
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Storage, trading or brokering when trading in the above goods – this applies to transactions with a value of at least € 10,000, regardless of whether the transaction is carried out as a single operation or as a series of operations that appear to be linked
The imposition of requirements on such a scale of business is the result of reports from various international organizations dealing with money laundering and terrorist financing. These reports show that works of art, antiques, and collectibles are widely used for money laundering and terrorist financing.
The planned changes also include::
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Clarification of the principle of storage of documents and information resulting from the application of financial security measures by relevant institutions
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Expansion of the scope of the statistics collected by the General Inspector of Financial Information (GIIF) and clarification of the rules for the provision of information by the GIIF to domestic and foreign authorities
Data verification mechanisms in the central register of beneficiaries
The design too expands the list of companies required to report information about beneficiaries to trusts, partnerships, European economic interest groups, European companies, cooperatives, European cooperatives, associations subject to registration in the national court register, foundations and institutions that offer money exchange services between virtual currencies and providers of virtual currency accounts. The planned changes do not apply to branches of foreign entrepreneurs in Poland.
The draft introduces new ones Mechanisms for checking the data contained in the central register of beneficiaries (CRBR), in particular the obligation of the competent institutions to record any discrepancies between the facts and data available in the CRBR. In the event of non-compliance, the institute that carried out the analysis has the option of making this information available to the higher-level authority in the correct order initiate an investigation into whether the information collected in the CRBR is correct and up-to-date. In addition to the fine of PLN 1,000,000 for failure to report information about real beneficiaries and their updates, the draft introduces an additional financial penalty. The actual beneficiary can be fined PLN 50,000 if he does not provide the company obliged to register in the CRBR with necessary and updated information.
Legislative phase
The draft was sent to Parliament for first reading, where the deadline for submitting the report is February 23, 2021. The new solutions will take effect 14 days after their announcement in the Journal of Laws, with the exception of some provisions that will take effect on other dates.
The Polish version of this article can also be viewed online: POLISH VERSION
© Copyright 2020 Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLPNational Law Review, Volume XI, Number 42