The European Parliament’s Committees on Economic and Monetary Affairs and on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (the Committees) have approved an amended draft of the Fourth Money Laundering Directive (MLD 4) under which the ultimate owners of companies and trusts will need to be listed in public registers in EU countries.

The proposals under the amended draft MLD 4 include the following:

• that public central registers will list information on the ultimate beneficial owners of various legal arrangements, including companies, foundations and trusts;
• that the rules will apply to banks, financial institutions, auditors, lawyers, accountants, notaries, tax advisors, asset managers, trusts and real estate agents;
• an emphasis on identifying the customer from reliably sourced information and documents; and
• that provisions on “politically-exposed persons” will include “domestic” as well as “foreign” politically-exposed persons.

These amendments are to be put to a vote by the European Parliament as a whole in March 2014.

The new Parliament, to be elected in May, will negotiate the legislation with the European Commission and the Council of Ministers in the second half of 2014.

A copy of the press release is available. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/pdfs/news/expert/infopress/20140210IPR35562/20140210IPR35562_en.pdf