By Elizabeth Hearst for AMLi
The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Economy has advised companies to submit authentic details of beneficiaries before June 30, or risk a hefty fine.
Those found to not comply with this requirement will be issued with a formal warning, and hit with a DH100,000 (€23,000) penalty if they miss next month’s deadline.
Similarly, those found in breach of these instructions could also have their licence suspended for a year by relevant authorities.
Under this new legislation, all establishments licensed and registered in the UAE, including those in commercial free zones, will be required to submit their beneficiaries data. The law will come into force from July 1st, with government-owned companies and financial free zone establishments excluded.
In a statement, the Ministry of the Economy said the data will “help create a national economic database”, thus “raising the UAE’s position in global economic and financial indicators and boost international cooperation in countering money laundering and combating terrorism financing”.
The UAE has recently moved to crack down on money laundering in the Arab gulf, with the UAE Central Bank (UAECB) imposing financial sanctions on 11 banks over failures in their AML framework in January.
The UAECB maintains that these banks had failed to achieve appropriate levels of compliance in their AML and Compliance framework by 2019. The governing body issued DH45.75 Million (€10.6 Million) in fines to those culpable.
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