RISKS OF THE "BLACK" ZONE FOR RUSSIA: FATF HAS UPDATED THE STANDARDS FOR THE AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION ABOUT THE BENEFICIARIES OF COMPANIES

The amendments relate to Recommendation No. 24 (R.24) and prescribe that FATF member States create special registers in which information about the beneficiaries of all companies established on their territory would be posted. In addition, it is necessary to ensure that the competent authorities have prompt access to this information.

Sanctions clauses

At the same time, in connection with the sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation and the restriction of its membership in the FATF, as a retaliatory measure, the Government adopted a resolution according to which Russian legal entities have the right to disclose information about the issue of securities not in full, if such disclosure creates a risk of introducing restrictive measures against the company.

As a result, over the past six months since the introduction of sanctions against Russia, the volume of disclosure of information about the issue of securities and beneficiaries of companies included in the top 200 of the Forbes list has significantly decreased.

Dutch experience

For comparison, in August, the FATF published a report on compliance with the requirements of international recommendations by the Netherlands.

Regarding compliance with the new requirements of recommendation No. 24, the international organization noted that the Netherlands has taken various initiatives aimed at identifying and assessing the risks of ML/FT of legal entities, but these initiatives do not provide a clear and consistent picture of these risks.

All legal entities must register basic information with the Chamber of Commerce (CoC), and most of them must also register information about beneficiaries in the relevant registry. This information is publicly available, but currently the registry is about 27% full. The Dutch authorities recognize this problem, but are still trying to find a solution to it, despite increased regulation in this area in 2018.

Dark goals

Thus, as you can see, some of the FATF members are already taking measures to comply with the new anti-laundering requirements, although the goals have not been fully achieved, which is not surprising, because FATF has recently amended the rules on disclosure of beneficial ownership.

Regarding the risks for Russia, it is worth noting that ignoring FATF regulations can play a cruel joke with companies and the Russian Federation will be included in the "gray" or even "black" FATF list. This can be expected, given the steps that Western countries and international organizations are taking to isolate Russia.

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