AML: European Commission Updates Its High-Risk Jurisdiction List

AML: European Commission updates its high risk jurisdiction list

On 10 January 2022, the European Commission published an amendment to the delegated regulation of high-risk jurisdictions for anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing.

The EU’s prescriptive list contains details of third-country jurisdictions which have strategic deficiencies in their Anti-Money Laundering / Counter Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) regimes that pose significant threats to the financial system of the European Union must be identified in order to protect the proper functioning of the internal market.

The EU commission see the following countries as having strategic deficiencies in their AML/CFT regime:

Burkina Faso
Cayman Islands
Haiti
Jordan
Mali
Morocco
The Philippines
Senegal
South Sudan

These are all countries that were identified in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) listed as “Jurisdictions under Increased Monitoring” in February, June or October 2021:

Other changes identified in the EU amendment include the removal of The Bahamas, Botswana, Ghana, Iraq and Mauritius from the list of high-risk third countries (also under the recommendation of the FATF).

Turkey, which was identified in October 2021 as having strategic deficiencies, has since made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime. Subject to the implementation of the commitments taken by Turkey, the EU Commission considers that the additional mitigating actions taken by Turkey mean there is no need to adopt further measures.

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