EPA yachts in Monaco
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 06:28
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Aida Brands
editor Brussels
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Aida Brands
editor Brussels
The European Parliament and EU countries reached political agreement last night on stricter anti-money laundering rules. In the future, football clubs must carefully check who their sponsors are and where the money comes from. It will also be better kept track of who exactly purchases expensive cars, yachts or private jets.
Banks and accountants have been required to keep an eye on suspicious transactions for some time and report them to the government. For example, if more than 10,000 euros is transferred. But in many other sectors that involve large sums of money, supervision is less strict.
For example in the sports sector. The NRC recently revealed that football clubs Ajax and PSV received money from Asian gambling companies of which it was not actually clear who the exact owners were. According to the EU, this should no longer be possible. Football clubs must carefully find out who their sponsors are and pass this on to the government.
Expensive cars and yachts
But it is not just the football clubs that have to keep track of who gives them large sums of money. Soon, large transactions of luxury goods such as yachts, private jets and cars will also have to be reported.
It is no longer just banks or other financial institutions that have a reporting obligation. Notaries, lawyers and, for example, car dealers must also report to the government who has made a major purchase. If a car worth more than 250,000 euros or a yacht or private jet worth more than 7.5 million euros is purchased, this must be reported.
The EU has been trying to combat money laundering for years. The war in Ukraine has increased pressure to better keep track of suspicious transactions. “When we started hunting Russian oligarchs, we saw where the money was hidden, such as in expensive cars and yachts. We now have to illuminate those dark corners,” says PvdA MEP Paul Tang. He worked on the new rules on behalf of the European Parliament over the past year.
According to Tang, a lot has been done in recent years to combat money laundering. For example, special government agencies have been set up in EU countries to monitor suspicious transactions. In the Netherlands it is the Financial Intelligence Unit Netherlands. These institutions in Europe will soon receive much more and more specific data.
Register of owners
Since 2022, EU countries have been keeping track of who owns or co-owns a company or who has an interest or control in it. The so-called UBO registers should make it easier to detect money laundering, among other things. These registers were public for some time until the European Court of Justice ruled that this register should not be public. Agreements have now been made in the new anti-money laundering rules that the registers will again be accessible to journalists, scientists and NGOs. In the future, they can register and after a screening they will have access to the register for 3 years. They must also receive answers to their questions within twelve working days. The aim is that journalists and scientists, among others, can also conduct research.
However, according to Tang, there is still much to improve. For example, it differs per country when exactly you are an owner. This too must now come to an end because a European definition of ownership has been introduced.
According to Tang, there were still steps to be taken in the field of European cooperation. “The EU is currently still a patchwork of 27 national approaches. As a result, Europe is in danger of becoming a money laundering mecca,” says Paul Tang.
At the end of December, the EU reached an agreement on a new European regulator, AMLA. This supervisor must ensure that countries share more with each other and cooperate better in tackling money laundering criminals.
In the next two months it will be decided in which European city this new supervisor will be located. The hope is that this new authority will make it much more difficult for criminals to launder their money.
2024-01-18 05:28:59
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