On Thursday 11 April 2024, Anti-Money Laundering Europe (AME) hosted a symposium at the European Parliament in Brussels about the European Union’s (EU) new Anti-Money Laundering package.

Under this package, the EU will establish a new Anti-Money Laundering Authority that will have supervisory powers over national financial institutions. The package aims to strengthen cooperation on anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing between Member States. It will include a central database for financial institutions as well as direct supervision of the forty riskiest entities in the EU by the Anti-Money Laundering Authority.

The symposium welcomed speakers from EU institutions and industry representatives, such as the European Leagues who represent all European domestic football leagues, and the European Gaming and Betting Association.

Eva Poptcheva MEP, Rapporteur for the AML package, chaired the symposium. She was joined by Annika Agemans of the Belgian Permanent Representation to the EU, Rasmus Andersen MEP who was Shadow Rapporteur of the package, Borja Pastor of Europol and Carolin Gardner of the European Banking Association. Alexandra Jour-Schroeder and Raluca Pruna also joined as representatives from the Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union.

Poptcheva, Andersen, Agemans, and Jour-Schroeder gave details on the trilogue negotiations that took place between the Parliament, Council, and Commission to reach consensus on technical details of the proposal. They spoke of the long and difficult discussions needed to reach a common position.

The package is expected to be formally adopted in the next few weeks. Representatives from the European Parliament were confident that the package will gain a comfortable majority in support of it.

STEP’s Samantha Morgan addressed the symposium on the impact of the AML package on the regulation of trusts and the fight against economic crime. STEP found it helpful that the package contains a common definition of a trust. We also welcomed that the EU will define what constitutes a trust-like structure, as it provides clarity to practitioners as to what is expected of them in terms of reporting standards.

STEP also mentioned the importance of clear guidance on Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs). It is encouraging that the EU is receptive to this. Finally, STEP hopes that enhanced cooperation between Member States will allow for enhanced consistency in reporting standards.

STEP is in the process of producing a paper on global solutions to economic crime. It looks at the current reporting arrangements and how practitioners act as a line of defence against economic crime, as well as solutions to improve the current global framework.

Matt Stephenson, Government Affairs Executive at STEP