CySEC and Cyprus' MOKAS anti money laundering unit issue directives on Panama Papers

Further to our earlier report whereby CySEC ordered all regulated CIF firms to investigate any links to Mossack Fonseca, a Directive has been issued by Cyprus’ anti money laundering unit MOKAS, clarifying Regulated Entities’ reporting obligations in relation to the publicly available list of persons which are included into the documents of Mossack Fonseca, referred to commonly as the Panama Papers.

CySEC logoRegulated entities that have identified any business relationship with persons included in the Panama Papers, are required to:

  1. Review and update their customers’ identification documents and data/information included in their economic profile,
  2. Review and thoroughly examine their customers’ activity and transactions, to determine whether suspicions over money laundering activities arise,
  3. Reassess, and where necessary, reclassify their customers’ risk categorisation in accordance to the risk based approach which they internally apply.

It is emphasized that CySEC expects from the Regulated Entities to facilitate the continuous monitoring of the issue relating to the Panama Papers and the ongoing monitoring of business relationships with their customers as required by the Prevention and Suppression of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law of 2007-2016 and the CySEC Directive DI144-2007-08 of 2012 for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.

For more on CySEC’s instructions regarding the Panama Papers, click here.

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