AML AROUND THE WORLD
independence, allegedly refused the job.
As a result, his position at the DNA was
prolonged for a further three months. The
move is seen by the Romanian press as
another attempt by the country’s political
class to secure itself immunity from prosecution. The Economist strongly criticized
the Balkans in this respect in May 2008,
when Monica Macovei, a justice minister
who had fought strongly against corruption had been fired, and her successor had
allegedly tried to fire the anticorruption
prosecutor for investigating his political
sponsors. The article stated: “Procedural
snags have held up all high-level corruption cases. Investigation of former ministers now requires parliamentary approval,
sending every case back to square one.”
Romania/FATF/Moneyval
With regard more specifically to antimoney laundering legislation and bestpractice standards specifically, it should
be noted that the EU’s new member states,
including Romania, are not Financial
Action Task Force (FATF) members per se;
they are however, members of MONEYVAL,
an FATF associate member. MONEYVAL
was established in September 1997 by the
Committee of Ministers of the Council of
Europe to conduct self- and mutual-assessment exercises of the anti-money laundering measures in place in Council of Europe
countries that are not members of the FATF.
According to the FATF Web site, the current full-time MONEYVAL members are
Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia,
Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania,
Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Poland,
Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino,
Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, The former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and
Ukraine. MONEYVAL’s mandate includes
encouraging jurisdictions to improve their
anti-money laundering measures in keeping with the FATF 40 Recommendations
and to enhance international cooperation.
MONEYVAL also engages in a regular
typologies exercise focused on the methods and trends of money laundering activity. MONEYVAL is a Council of Europe
subcommittee of the European Committee
on Crime Problems (CDPC).
national legislation. This summary report
criticizes a number of points with regard
to Romania’s AML legislation. A number
of the preventive measures, in particular
those noted in relation to customer due
diligence, have been addressed in the
newly implemented legislation based on
the EU’s Third Directive, notably those
dealing with “beneficial ownership.” Some
other issues that were criticized in the summary document do not however, appear to
have been dealt with in the implementation
of the new legislation, namely the requirements in identifying PEPs and in defining
their source of wealth. This criticism is
in line with the report’s wider criticism
of Romania’s legal system and enforcement of the anti-money laundering regime:
“Ineffective implementation resulting in
low number of final convictions. There
have only been final convictions in five
money laundering cases, and tax evasion is
still the most common predicate offense.”
The report does however, recognize that
Romania has introduced some “significant
developments” s [