Money Laundering Regulations

Publicly Exposed Persons definition

Publicly Exposed Persons are natural persons who exercise or have exercised important public functions. For this purposes important public functions shall be:

a) heads of state, heads of government, ministers and deputy ministers or secretaries of state;

b) members of Parliament or similar central legislative bodies;

c) members of the governing bodies of political parties;

d) members of supreme courts, constitutional courts or other high-level courts whose decisions can be appealed only by extraordinary means of appeal;

e) members of the governing bodies of the courts of accounts or members of the governing bodies of the boards of central banks;

f) ambassadors, in charge of business and senior officers in the armed forces;

g) members of boards of directors and supervisory boards and persons holding management positions of autonomous administrations, predominantly publicly owned undertakings and national companies;

h) directors, deputy directors and members of the management board or members of the governing bodies of an international organisation.

Members of the family of the publicly exposed person are, for the purposes of this law:

a) the spouse of the publicly exposed person or his/her concubine / the person with whom he / she is in relations similar to those of the spouses;

b) children and spouses or their concubines, persons with whom children are in relations similar to those of the spouses;

c) parents.

Persons known to be close associates of persons publicly exposed shall be:

a) the natural persons known as the real beneficiaries of a legal person, of an entity without legal personality or of a legal arrangement similar to them together with any of the publicly exposed persons or as having any other close business relationship with such a person;

b) the natural persons who are the only real beneficiaries of a legal person, of an entity without legal personality or of a legal arrangement similar to them, known as being established for the de facto benefit of one of the publicly exposed persons.

Note: Without prejudice to the enforcement, based on a risk assessment, of the additional measures of knowing the clientele, after the expiration of a time limit of one year from the date when the person ceased to hold an important public function, SAI EAM no longer considers that person as being publicly exposed.

Real Beneficial Owner Deficnition

A real beneficiary means any natural person who ultimately owns or controls the client and / or the natural person on whose behalf a transaction, operation or activity is performed.

The concept of a real beneficiary includes at least:

a) in the case of companies provided for in the Law of companies no. 31/1990, republished, with subsequent amendments and completions:

1. the natural person or persons who ultimately own or control a legal person by exercising the right of ownership, directly or indirectly, on a number of shares or voting rights sufficiently large to ensure their control or by participating in their own capital of the legal person or by exercising control by other means, the legal person owned or controlled being not a legal person registered in the trade register whose shares are traded on a regulated market and which is subject to advertising requirements in accordance with those regulated by European Union law or with internationally standards. This criterion is considered to be fulfilled in the case of holding at least 25% of the shares plus one share or the participation in the equity of the legal person in a percentage of over 25%;

2. the natural person or persons who ensure the management of the legal person, if, after exhausting all possible means and provided there are no grounds for suspicion, no natural person is identified in accordance with point 1 or if there is any doubt that the identified person is the real beneficiary, in which case the reporting entity is obliged to retain and record the measures applied in order to identify the real beneficiary in accordance with point 1 and this point;

b) in the case of trusts:

1. settlor/s;

2. trustee/s;

3. protector/s, if any;

4. the beneficiaries or, where the persons benefiting from the legal arrangement or the legal entity have not yet been identified, the category of persons for whose main interest the legal arrangement or the legal entity are constituted or operate;

5. any other natural person exercising ultimate control over the trust through the direct or indirect exercise of ownership or other means;

 c) in the case of legal entities such as foundations and legal arrangements similar to trusts, the natural person (natural persons) who occupy positions that are equivalent to or similar to those referred to in the letter b);

(d) in the case of legal persons other than those referred to in subparagraph a) - c), and entities managing and distributing funds:

1. the natural person beneficiary of at least 25% of the assets, respectively the social shares or the actions of a legal person or an entity without legal personality, if the future beneficiaries have already been identified;

2. the group of persons in whose main interest a legal person or entity is established or operates without legal personality, if the natural persons benefiting from the legal person or the legal entity have not yet been identified;

3. the natural person or persons who exercise control over at least 25% of the assets of a legal person or entities without legal personality, including by exercising the power to appoint or revoke the majority of the members of the administrative, management or supervisory bodies of that entity.