In Romania, on July 21, 2019 was approved the Law no. 129/2019 for the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism, which transposes into national law two European directives, respectively, Directive (EU) 2015/849 regarding the prevention of use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing (“Directive 2015/849”) and Council Directive (EU) 2016 / 2.258 of 6 December 2016 amending Directive 2011/16 / EU regarding the access of tax authorities to information on combating money laundering that addresses the threat posed by money laundering (“Directive 2016 / 2.258” ).
Through this new legislative framework, Romania aligns itself with the Member States of the European Union regarding the adoption of specific measures to mitigate the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing. The measures adopted by the European Union in this area are in line with the recommendations of the Financial Action Group (FATF), which is the main international body in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
This new legislation introduces a series of special provisions for gambling organizers, and since their entry into force, they must be respected and applied exactly. These special regulations for gambling activity are as follows:
Defining gambling services – any service that involves a stake with monetary value in gambling, including those with an ability element, such as lotteries, casino games, poker games and bets, provided at a venue physically or by any means at a distance, by electronic means or by any other type of technology that facilitates the communication and at the individual request of the recipient of the services.
Establishing as reporting entities the providers of gambling services, and from this position derives a series of obligations:
- submit a report for suspicious transactions exclusively to the National Office for Money Laundering and Prevention if they know, suspect or have reasonable grounds to suspect that: the goods come from the commission of crimes or are related to terrorist financing; the person or his / her authorized representative / empowered is not who they claim to be; the information that the reporting entity holds may be used to enforce the provisions of the law; in any other situations or regarding elements that are likely to raise suspicions regarding the character, economic purpose or motivation of the transaction, such as the existence of anomalies in relation to the customer profile, as well as when there are indications that the data held about the client or the beneficiary real are not real or topical, and the client refuses to update them or offers explanations that are not plausible.
- to report to the National Office for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering transactions with amounts in cash, in lei or in foreign currency, whose minimum limit represents the equivalent in lei of 10,000 euros;
- to apply the standard measures of knowing the client when collecting the winnings, when buying or exchanging chips when carrying out transactions whose minimum value represents the equivalent in lei of at least 2,000 euros, through a single operation. When the amount is not known at the time of acceptance of the transaction, the reporting entity applies the standard measures of customer knowledge, when it is informed about the value of the transaction and when it has established that the applicable minimum limit has been reached;
- to apply additional measures to know the client in all situations which, by their nature, may present an increased risk of money laundering or terrorist financing, including in the following situations: in the case of business relations and transactions involving persons from countries which does not apply or insufficiently applies international standards in the field of preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing or which are known internationally as non-cooperating countries; in the case of correspondence with credit institutions and financial institutions in other Member States or third countries; in the case of transactions or business relationships with publicly exposed persons or clients whose real beneficiaries are publicly exposed persons, including for a period of at least 12 months from the date on which that person no longer holds an important public office; in the case of natural or legal persons established in third countries identified by the European Commission as high risk third countries; in the cases provided for in the sectoral regulations or instructions issued by the National Gambling Office.
The reporting entities may apply measures to know the client arising from the outsourced activities, only if they contractually require them to comply with the legal obligations regarding the prevention and control of money laundering and terrorist financing and establish the mechanisms by which they ensure compliance. In these cases, the reporting entities remain responsible for fulfilling their obligations under this law and in cases where they do not directly apply customer awareness measures.
The reporting entities have the obligation to keep in the record or in electronic format all the records obtained by applying these measures, such as copies of the identification documents, the monitoring and checks carried out, including the information obtained through the electronic identification means necessary to comply with the requirements. of knowledge regarding the clientele, for a period of 5 years, from the date of termination of the business relationship with the client or from the date of the occasional transaction. Reporting entities keep supporting documents and records of transactions, consisting of account sheets or business correspondence needed to identify transactions, including the results of any analysis performed in relation to the client, for example, requests to establish the history and purpose of complex transactions, unusually large. These documents may be original or copies admitted in court proceedings and must be kept for a period of 5 years, from the date of termination of the business relationship with the client or from the date of the occasional transaction. When it is necessary to extend the period of retention of documents in order to prevent, detect or investigate money laundering or terrorist financing activities, reporting entities are obliged to extend the deadlines with the period indicated by the competent authorities, without this extension being able to over 5 years. At the end of the retention period, reporting entities have the obligation to delete personal data, except when other legal provisions require the retention of data.
The personal data are processed by the reporting entities on the basis of this law and in compliance with the law in force regarding the processing of personal data only for the purpose of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing and are not subsequently processed in a manner incompatible with this purpose. The processing of personal data for other purposes, such as commercial ones, is forbidden.
The reporting entities have the obligation to designate one or more persons who have responsibilities in the application of the law, specifying the nature and limits of the entrusted responsibilities, whose names will be communicated to the National Office for Prevention and Combating Money Laundering, exclusively in electronic format, through the channels. made available by him.
The reporting entities shall establish internal policies and rules, internal control mechanisms and procedures for managing the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing, which shall include at least the following:
- applicable measures regarding customer knowledge;
- measures applicable in the matter of reporting, keeping records and all documents according to the requirements of the law and promptly supplying the data at the request of the competent authorities;
- applicable measures regarding internal control, risk assessment, and management, compliance management and communication;
- applicable measures regarding the protection of the own personnel involved in the process of applying these policies, against any threats or hostile or discriminatory actions;
training and periodic evaluation of employees. - Reporting entities that are part of a group are required to implement group-level policies, procedures and training, including data protection policies and policies and procedures for sharing information within the group in order to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, which it also applies to the majority of branches and subsidiaries owned by the Member States and third countries.
Inclusion in the national framework for preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing of the National Gambling Office, which must:
- carry out assessments of the risk of producing these criminal phenomena at sectoral level and, where appropriate, issue regulations or instructions regarding risk factors and counteracting and mitigating measures;
- draw up statistics on the effectiveness of measures to prevent and combat money laundering and terrorist financing, in the specific field of activity, which include: data for measuring the size and importance of the sector that falls within the scope of the law, including the number of entities and persons , as well as the economic importance of this sector; data for measuring the reporting, investigation and judicial phases of the national framework for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, including the number of reports on suspicious transactions submitted to the National Office for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering, actions taken as a result of the reports respective and, annually, the number of cases investigated, the number of persons prosecuted, the number of persons convicted for money laundering or terrorist financing offenses, the type of offenses generating assets subject to money laundering, if this information is available , as well as the value in euros of the goods that have been seized or confiscated; if available, data indicating the number and percentage of reports that result in further investigation, together with the annual report to reporting entities detailing the usefulness and follow-up of the reports they have submitted; data on the number of cross-border requests for information that have been made, received, partially or completely solved by the National Office for Prevention and Combating Money Laundering.
- transmit to the National Office for the Prevention and Control of Money Laundering, in electronic format, the statistics provided, in the form established by it. The National Office for the Prevention and Control of Money Laundering ensures the annual publication of a consolidated version of the statistics, on its own website;
- supervise and control, within the framework of the duties of the service, the way in which the provisions of the law are applied by the reporting entities that provide gambling services;
- inform immediately the National Office for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering, as the case may be: when, in the exercise of its specific tasks, it discovers facts that could be related to money laundering or terrorist financing; regarding other violations of the provisions of the law with a significant impact on the exposure to the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, found according to the specific attributions.
In conclusion, the changes presented above, as well as the other news brought by Law no. 129/2019 establishes additional obligations for reporting entities and they have the role to adapt, but also to tighten the sanctioning system to prevent money laundering. The final goal pursued by the legislator is to ensure and strengthen the national legislation for preventing and combating money laundering, in accordance with the indications of international bodies in this field.
Last but not least, it remains to be seen when changes to the new regulation will occur, given that Romania transposed Directive 2015/849 only two years after the compliance deadline (respectively, June 26, 2017), and this directive has already been amended by a new European act, whose deadline for transposition into national law is January 10, 2020.
