On 28 April 2020 significant amendments to the Law of Ukraine dated 06.12.2019 No. 361-IX On Preventing and Combating Money Laundering, Financing of Terrorism and Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction came into force.
The above changes were made, inter alia, based on the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) and with a view to fulfilling the obligations assumed by Ukraine on the basis of Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement regarding the implementation in the national legislation of the requirements of Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and the Council On the prevention of the use of the financial system for money laundering or terrorist financing
and Regulation (EU) 2015/847 On information accompanying transfers of funds and repealing Regulation (EC).
Thus, the character of innovations has wide coverage - from the expansion of the subjective structure of participants of primary financial monitoring and transition to the risk-oriented approach to increase of threshold amounts.
The main changes are as follows:
- the threshold amount has been increased from UAH 150,000.00 to UAH 400,000.00 for financial transactions that must be reported to the regulatory authority;
- decreases from 17 to 4 the number of signs of financial transactions to be reported to regulatory authorities.
Subjects of primary financial monitoring are obliged to provide information only on those operations, which are related:
- cash flow;
- money transfer abroad;
- by public figures;
- clients from countries that do not follow the recommendations of international, intergovernmental organizations operating in the field of antilegalization.
- the possibility is established, at which at a presentation of information on suspicious financial operations by subjects of primary financial monitoring adequate measures of influence for infringement of the antilegalization legislation from a written warning and punitive sanctions in considerable sizes before license cancellation are entered;
- the list of subjects which are referred to subjects of primary financial monitoring is expanded.
These include, in particular, persons who provide tax advice, persons who provide services to establish, operate or manage legal entities and providers of services related to the turnover of virtual assets, as well as lawyers, law firms, bar associations, and law firms;
- the procedure for determining ultimate beneficial owners has been updated;
Thus, subjects of primary financial monitoring should not take into account the data of USREOU, and independently verify these data on the basis of documents provided by the client.
- mechanisms have been established to regulate the sphere of circulation of virtual assets, in particular, a certain regulator for the subjects of this sphere;
- the mechanism for applying targeted financial sanctions has been improved in line with the requirements of FATF Recommendations 6 and 7 and UN Security Council Resolution 1267 and 1373, namely:
- there is an asset freeze procedure;
- the provision for international cooperation in this area has been improved.
