The Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body MONEYVAL met in Strasbourg for its 46th plenary meeting between the 8th and the 12th of December.

The picture provided by MONEVAL shows that Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to immediately and meaningfully address its remaining deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing legislation, in particular by adopting necessary amendments to its Criminal Code and rapidly issuing and bringing into effect the necessary by-laws under the revised preventative legislation (brought into force on 25 June 2014). Progress of Bosnia and Herzegovina under Step 3 of the Compliance Enhancing Procedures will be further reviewed at the 47th plenary in April 2015.

As a consequence, MONEYVAL calls upon States and territories evaluated by MONEYVAL and other countries to advise their financial institutions to pay special attention by applying enhanced due diligence measures to transactions with persons and financial institutions from or in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in order to address the money laundering and financing of terrorism risks.

It remains to be seen whether MONEYVAL has taken further actions in relation to the other topics object of the agenda which were inter alia the following:

- the 4th round Mutual Evaluation Report on Azerbaijan;
- the follow up reports on Israel, Albania, Republic of Moldova and Slovakia under the 4th round procedures;
- the implementation of AML/CFT standards and issues related to de-risking;
- the draft typologies report on laundering the proceeds of organised crime;
- the actions taken by MONEYVAL states and territories on the implementation of financial sanctions regarding persons designated as affiliated to the Islamic State;
- the adoption of its Rules of procedure for the 5th round of evaluations;
- the revision of its  follow- up procedures under the 4th round and the rules governing the implementation of voluntary tax compliance programmes and AML/CFT requirements by States and territories evaluated by MONEYVAL.

Source: MONEYVAL