CySEC reports 63 licensed companies have ties to Panama Papers

Following our earlier coverage that Cyprus financial regulator CySEC had instructed all regulated companies on the island to investigate any links to Mossack Fonseca, CySEC has now announced that following its review it believes that 63 regulated entities had and/or have a business relationship with Mossack Fonseca and/or with persons included in the Panama Papers.

CySEC logoCySEC has collected data from 413 regulated entities in Cyprus (including CIFs, ASPs, MC UCITS, AIFMs, AIFLNP) in making its evaluation.

The data concerning the 63 regulated entities will be further examined and inspected by CySEC within the framework of onsite inspections performed by CySEC.

It is clarified that, as Cyprus’ MOKAS anti money laundering unit also stated in a Circular dated 12 May 2016, the inclusion of any person in the said Panama Papers documents does not necessarily imply any suspicious activities relating to money laundering.

CySEC is calling anew its supervised entities to adopt measures for the continuous monitoring of matters related to the Panama Papers, as well as to continuously monitor their customers’ business relationships, as required by the Cypriot Prevention and Suppression of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law of 2007-2016, and CySEC Directive DI144-2007-08 of 2012 for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.

More on CySEC’s announcement re the Panama Papers can be seen here.

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