Reporting of AML Crime to Supervisory Authority in UAE

This article discusses Federal Decree by Law No 20 of 2018 on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Financing of Illegal Organizations in United Arab Emirates. Here we will see Penalties for Money Laundering Crime in UAE in detail.

The Financial institutions and designated nonfinancial businesses and professions shall, upon suspicion or if they have reasonable grounds to suspect a transaction or funds representing all or some proceeds, or suspicion of their relationship to the Crime or that they will be used regardless of their value, to inform the Unit without delay, directly and provide the Unit with a detailed report including all the data and information available regarding that transaction and the parties involved, and to provide any additional information required by the Unit, with no right to object under the confidentiality provisions.

Lawyers, notaries, other legal professionals and independent legal auditors shall be exempted from this provision if the information related to these operations have been obtained subject to professional confidentiality.

The Implementing Regulation of the present Decree-Law shall determine the rules, controls and cases of the obligation to report suspicious transactions.

Financial institutions and designated nonfinancial businesses and professions shall:

a) Identify the crime risks within its scope of work as well as continuously assess, document, and update such assessment based on the various risk factors established in the Implementing Regulation of this Decree-Law and maintain a risk identification and assessment analysis with its supporting data to be provided to the Supervisory Authority upon request.

b) Take the necessary due diligence measures and procedures and define their scope, taking into account the various risk factors and the results of the national risk assessment and retain the records received during the implementation of this process. The Implementing Regulation of the present Decree-Law shall specify the cases in which such procedures and measures are applied, and the conditions for deferring the completion of customer or real beneficiary identity verification.

c) Refrain from opening or conducting any financial or commercial transaction under an anonymous or fictitious name or by pseudonym or number, and maintaining a relationship or providing any services to it.

d) Develop internal policies, controls and procedures approved by senior management to enable them to manage the risks identified and mitigate them, and to review and update them continuously, and apply this to all subsidiaries and affiliates in which they hold a majority stake; the Implementing Regulations of this

Decree-Law shall specify what should be included in said policies, controls and procedures.

e) Prompt application of the directives when issued by the competent authorities in the state for implementing the decisions issued by the UN Security Council under Chapter (7) of UN Convention for the Prohibition and Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other related directives.

f) Maintain all records, documents, and data for all transactions, whether local or international, and make this information available to the competent authorities promptly upon request, as stipulated in the Implementing

Regulation of this Decree-Law.

g) Any other obligations stipulated in the Implementing Regulation of this Decree-Law.

for the purposes of this Decree-Law, the Implementing Regulation of this Decree-Law shall regulate:

a) The obligations of non-profit organisations.

b) Retaining information and records by the registrar, to be provided upon request and taking procedures for access by the public.

c) Retaining information and records by the legal person and legal arrangement, and making it available upon

Article (17)

All authorities shall abide by the confidentiality of the information obtained in relation to suspicious transaction or the crimes provided for in this Decree-Law, and not disclose them except to the extent necessary for use in investigations, prosecutions or cases in violation of the provisions of this Decree-Law.