CAMS (ACAMS) - EU Directives Summary
1. Voted in 1991
EU First Directive (1AMLD)
EU Second Directive (2AMLD)
EU Third Directive (3AMLD)
EU Fourth Directive (4AMLD)
2. Members to legislate & prevent domestic financial system from being used for money laundering
3. Applied on EU member states and not on other countries (no extraterritorial reach)
4. Limited to Money Laundering and drug trafficking as defined in Vienna convention in 1988.
5. Members can extend list of predicate offences.
6. Directives are force of law
1. Voted in 2001
2. Strict money laundering controls across EU continent
3. Extended the scope from drugs trafficking to other serious crimes such as corruption, frauds etc.
4. Objective Factual Circumstances/ Willful Blindness/ ignorantia legis neminem excusat
5. Money Service Businesses covered under Money Laundering risks
6. Inclusion of gatekeepers i.e. auditors, tax advisers, external auditors, real estate agents, notary and legal professionals.
1. Voted in 2005
2. Consider Money Laundering and TF as separate crimes.
3. Customer identification needs to be done for any suspicious activity to trust & company service providers, life insurance intermediaries, dealers selling goods for cash payment of
more than Euro 15,000.
4. Detailing a risk based approach to customer due diligence.
5. Protecting employees who report suspicious of Money Laundering & Terrorist Financing activities.
6. Obligating member states to keep comprehensive records of suspicious activities reported.
7. Financial institutions to identify & verify beneficial owner (its better explained in UBO vs BO)
8. Third EU directive applied on credit inst, FIs, auditors, legal prof., trust & company service providers, estate agents, goods dealers in cash over Euro 15000
9. Worldwide: Once a PEP, always a PEP. EU: PEP to be removed from being PEP 1 year after leaving prominent position.
10. Establishment of Comitology Commission to oversea the implementation of EU directives.
1. Voted in 2015.
2. Threshold to resport suspicious activity was decreased from Euro 15,000 to 10,000.
3. CDD to be applied for all transfers above Euro 1000.
4. New definition for correspondent relationship, PEP & Senior Management
5. Tax crime related to direct / indirect taxes.
6. Explanation of “Occasional financial activity (one-off)” was included.
7. EU executive to identify third-country (high risk third countries) having Money Laundering and TF deficiencies.
8. EDD to be applied on PEP and their close family members and associates.
9. New requirement for beneficial ownership information have been introduced particularly for trust and similar arrangements.
10. Groups to have group-wide policies and procedures to ensure that criminals and their close associates convicted are prevented from holding management functions or indirectly
controlling certain obliged entities.
11. "Naming and Shaming", pecuniary sanction for natural persons set to at least 5 million Euro or 10% of total annual turn-over for entities.
12. Since it is a directive it gives some discretion to member states on the application of the provisions.
13. Member states to conduct Money Laundering/TF assessment and to have a dedicated authority. Entities to take appropriate steps to identify and assess their own risks.
 CAMS (ACAMS) - EU Directives Summary

1. Voted in 2018.
2. Extended scope of persons subject to Money Laundering obligations, e.g. auditors, external accountants, tax advisors who provide directly or indirectly material aid on tax matters
as principal business or professional activity.
3. Real estate transactions where rent is more than Eur 10,000 and real estate agents are intermediaries in the letting of property.
4. Persons trading or intermediaries in the trade of art. If the value of transaction or series of transaction is above Euro 10,000.
5. VASP: Virtual Assets Service Providers and custodian e-wallet (for bitcoins) must be registered with competent authorities.
6. FIUs should be able to obtain information allowing them to associate virtual currency address to the identity of the owner of the virtual currency.
EU Fifth Directive (5AMLD) 7. Requirement to implement public beneficial ownership register in order to implement a verification mechanism.
8. National register should be inter-connected so that member states can exchange information.
9. Centralise register to retrieve natural or legal persons holding or control payment accounts to national FIUs.
10. Prepaid Cards:
a. Lower monthly transaction limit & maximum amount on which entities may not apply due diligence measure is EUR 150.
b. Lowering online transaction limit is EUR
c. Cards issued outside EU are prohibited unless they issuing country have equivalent legislation to 5th Money Laundering Directive.

Voted in Dec 2020 and members to implement it by June 2021

Definitions & Offences:

6AMLD sets a new foundation for AML efforts in the EU by clearly defining what the European Union defines as ‘money laundering’. The definition itself is fairly involved, and bears
out quoting in detail:
a) Transferring or converting property (assets of any kind), knowing that it is the product of criminal activity, to hide or disguise its illicit origin or to assist anybody involved to evade
the legal consequences of their actions;
b) Hiding or disguising the true nature, source, location, disposition, movement, rights with respect to, or ownership of, property, knowing that it came from criminal activity;
c) Acquiring, possessing or using property knowing, at the time it is received, that it had come from criminal activity;
EU Sixth Directive (6AMLD) d) Aiding and abetting, inciting and attempting these offences.

Predicate Offences: It also defines 22 predicate offences under money laundering

Liability:
Under 6AMLD extends liability from ‘natural persons’ – individuals – to ‘legal persons’ – companies and business partnerships, for which those individuals work. It also covers
individuals and businesses acting on the company’s behalf in the commission of an offence, such as lawyers, accountants and consultants.

Punishment:
Individuals: prison sentences from one year to four years, plus other ‘proportionate’ measures that might include fines, a professional disqualification, and disbarment from running
for public office, depending on the decisions of national governments.
Corporations: temporary and partial - the time-limited closure of business units
where offences were committed, the freezing or confiscation of business assets, the judicial supervision of activities, and the exclusion from entitlement to public benefits or aid.