The Conference of the Parties of the Council of Europe’s Warsaw Convention has called on its states parties to apply corporate liability to money laundering offences effectively.
In a report released today, the Conference of the Parties of Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism – also known as the “Warsaw Convention” – evaluates the extent to which 36 states have legislative or other measures in place to ensure that legal persons can be held liable for money laundering offences when they are committed on their behalf and for their benefit.””
The liability of legal persons can be particularly valuable for the effective fight against money laundering since criminals often use corporations, charities and businesses to launder their illicit gains. Through sophisticated money laundering schemes, they are frequently able to avoid any liability by disguising their involvement in crime and relying on the weakness of the systems of sanctioning legal persons and confiscating their illicit gains.
The report concludes that seventeen countries have fully transposed all the provisions of Article 10: Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Croatia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Slovak Republic and Sweden.
The Council of Europe’s Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism (CETS no. 198), opened for signature in Warsaw in 2005, is the first international treaty covering both the prevention and the control of money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
The Conference of the Parties monitors States Parties’ compliance with the convention.
States should effectively apply corporate liability to money laundering offences: Warsaw Convention report