Essential Amendment to the Act Againt Money Laundering

JUDr. Jakub Vozáb, PhD. 08.05.2016

Czech parliament discusses the government's draft amendment to Act no. 253/2008 Coll., On some measures against the legalization of proceeds from crime and terrorist financing and other related laws, which implements Directive on prevention of the use of the financial system for money laundering and terrorist financing.

The amendment provides, inter alia, an entirely new obligation for any legal person, a trust fund and any other similar entities without legal personality to write to the appropriate public register information of the actual owner.

It is expected that the amendment will come into effect in mid-2016, with the exception of that part of the governing record information about the real owners, which should come into force on 1 January 2018 respectively.

Real owner defines the amendment so that it is a natural person who factually or legally executes direct or indirect decisive influence on a legal person or other entity.

Information about the actual owner will not be public and will only be available to some state authorities, such as the Czech police and tax authorities.