Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) issued Circular C357 with regards to the Financial Action Task Forces’ (FATF) latest publication on Best Practices on Beneficial Ownership for Legal Persons (the Report) to help countries eliminate the cloak of secrecy concerning the ultimate owner of a company, foundation, association or any other legal person, and prevent their misuse for crime and terrorism.

The Report suggests that a multi-pronged approach using several sources of information to obtain accurate and up-to-date information on beneficial ownership, in a timely manner, is often more effective in preventing the misuse of legal persons for criminal purposes and implementing measures that make the beneficial ownership of legal persons sufficiently transparent.

The Report also sets forward suggestions on ensuring authorities can access information on beneficial ownership of overseas entities.

CySEC expects that regulated entities take due account and consult the Report, as provided in paragraph 17 of the CySEC’s Directive for the prevention and suppression of money laundering and terrorist financing when implementing appropriate measures and procedures on a risk-based approach, and on implementing the customer identification and due diligence procedures.

CySEC’s Circular C357 on FATF’s report can be found here.

FATF’s Best Practices Report can be found here.

CySEC’s Directive for the prevention and suppression of money laundering and terrorist financing can be found here.