Newsflash – Final text of the fourth AML Directive

In a few words

Two years after the European Commission’s proposal, the European Parliament approved the final text of the fourth AML Directive (“the Fourth AMLD”) on May 20th, 2015.

Beyond the FATF recommendations and the European Commission’s initial proposal, the Fourth AMLD will oblige EU member states to keep central registers of information on the ultimate beneficial owners of corporate and other legal entities, as well as trusts.

We commented on this in our previous article “Fourth AML Directive” available here.

The European Union Member States will have up to two years from the date of adoption to implement the Fourth AMLD into their national legislation. The resulting laws and regulations are likely to be very challenging for a financial industry such as Luxembourg.