Threshold value for money-laundering cancelled in Russia

Chris Hamblin

26 February 2015

Russia submitted a report to the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism a few months ago. Federal law 134-FZ was the relevant means of reform.

Since June 2012 in Russia, according to the Rosfinmonitoring website:

The definition of a beneficial owner has been introduced and the obligation to identify it established.
A mechanism to restrain monetary funds and property has been set up as well as an obligation for financial institutions to freeze those funds if relevant grounds for doing so have been stipulated.
The threshold for a credit institution's shares whose acquisition is subject to the Central Bank’s approval has been reduced from 20% to 10% of the total.
"The threshold value for money laundering liability has been cancelled." This might mean, to quote from the FATF website, "the threshold which decriminalised self-laundering of amounts lower than 6 million roubles was not in compliance with the FATF Recommendations ."
Offences under currency, tax and customs legislation have been designated as predicate to money laundering.

The main questions addressed to the delegation were to do with procedures to seize terrorist assets, which are now in place, and measures to ensure the transparency of beneficial ownership. The participants paid special attention to the mechanism for implementing the FATF Recommendation 6 provisions with regard to politically exposed persons.

The Russian Federation notified the participants that it had edged towards creating other legal mechanisms allowing its authorities to seize funds, valuables and other ill-gotten property.