Amendments to the Prevention of Money Laundering and Funding of Terrorism Regulations

As of April 16th 2019, amendments were made to the Prevention of Money Laundering and Funding of Terrorism Regulations (“PMLFTR”) upon the advice of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (“FIAU”) and published as Legal Notice 77 of 2019. These amendments to the PMLFTR were drafted under the mandate of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (Cap. 373) and include the following changes:

(i) the amended sub-regulation (1) of Regulation 6 of the PMLFTR lays down an obligation for suspicious transaction reports which need to be shared within the group;

(ii) sub-regulation (11) of Regulation 15 of the PMLFTR is deleted which sub-regulation’s aim was the protection of individuals who report suspicions of money laundering or terrorist financing;

(iii) sub-regulation (4) has been added to Regulation 16 of the PMLFTR which restricts the rights of data subjects referred to in Regulation 4 of Restriction of the Data Protection (Obligation and Rights) Regulations (S.L. 586.09); and

(iv) the amended sub-regulation (4) of Regulation 21 of the PMLFTR grants wider discretion to the FIAU when it comes to enforcing AML/CFT obligations.

In order to familiarise yourself with these changes, please feel free to contact us and gain more information about PMLFTR or other relevant legislations.