The Act establishes a legal framework for the prevention, detection and prosecution of money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, and provides mechanisms for the confiscation and civil recovery of proceeds derived from criminal conduct. It also establishes the Gibraltar Financial Intelligence Unit (GFIU) as an operationally independent body responsible for receiving, analysing and disseminating financial intelligence, exchanging information with foreign financial intelligence units, supervising suspicious activity reporting mechanisms, and supporting investigations into financial crime. The Act creates a range of criminal offences relating to the acquisition, possession, use, concealment, transfer and facilitation of criminal property. It imposes reporting obligations on persons engaged in relevant financial business and establishes procedures for authorised disclosures, transaction suspensions, information-gathering powers, and cooperation between supervisory, law enforcement and intelligence authorities. The legislation regulates access to information held by the GFIU, protects confidential information, and sets out offences and penalties for non-compliance, tipping-off, failure to disclose suspicious activities, and breaches of information requirements. A substantial part of the Act is devoted to anti-money laundering and counter-financing measures applicable to relevant financial businesses. These provisions require customer due diligence, beneficial ownership identification, ongoing monitoring, record-keeping, risk assessments, staff training, internal controls, enhanced due diligence for higher-risk situations, and measures relating to politically exposed persons, correspondent banking and virtual asset activities. The Act also establishes supervisory and enforcement powers, confiscation and restraint mechanisms, civil recovery procedures, investigatory powers including production orders and unexplained wealth orders, and powers to make subordinate legislation for implementing international obligations and related agreements. Under Serious offences the Act lists: An offence under regulation 3(1)(d) of the Marine Protection Regulations 2014; (2) An offence under section 192D of the Public Health Act; and (3) An offence under section 3(1) and section 8 of the Control of Trade in Endangered Species Act 1998.
Gibraltar (UK) · 2015-08-06