- adjust certain obligations of regulated entities
- transform the current Service d'Information et de Contrôle sur les Circuits Financiers (SICCFIN), created in 1993, into an independent Monegasque Financial Security Authority with extended powers,
- create an obligation for associations and foundations to declare their beneficial owners,
- adapt the system for monitoring beneficial owners during the lifetime of the reporting entities,
- adapt the system of sanctions applicable to reporting entities.
It also created additional obligations for Monaco Sociétés Civiles (SCPs) as explained in our previous article: https://rosemont-int.com/fr/article/news/monaco-aml-legislation-update-part-i-extra-obligations-for-scps
Bill no. 1078 still focuses on the trade and industry register, civil companies, foundations and associations, and aims to increase the transparency of legal entities in the Principality.
Key points to note are:
- The strengthening and adapting the legal framework for maintaining, keeping and making available "basic information" concerning legal entities and beneficial owners;
- The Department of the Interior and the Direction of Economic Development have been given powers of supervision and administrative sanctions; and
- Administrative and criminal penalties, described at the time by the Moneyval Committee as "not dissuasive" or "insufficient", are strengthened.
The new Article 6-2 of Act no. 797, as amended, provides that that any company entered in the special register maintained by par la Direction of Economic Development concerning civil companies (such as the SCP) must confirm each year, in the month following the anniversary date of its entry in the register, that it is continuing in business. The Government had initially envisaged a declaration every five years.
There is also a new disposition aimed at simplifying the procedures for civil companies/partnerships that no longer have any assets or liabilities, and whose partners wish to dissolve them early, without liquidation, and to have them removed from the special register
From now on, this will be possible by a simple declaration to the Direction of Economic Development. This new procedure will make it possible for the register to be better kept up to date and, secondly, to limit the number of companies listed in the register, whose directors, in the past, may have been dissuaded from taking the necessary steps to dissolve them and, therefore, deregister them.
Interesting Article 123 of the bill was introduced to create a new article 1672-1 in the Civil Code, which stipulates the basic information that must now included in all “company contracts” (statutes) and which must be updated in the event of changes.
The provisions of Chapters I to IV of the Law come into force on the date set by the regulatory provisions adopted for their application, but no later than 24 November 2023 at the latest.
It should be noted that on the same day the Monegasque Government also presented a new draft Bill on AML matters (Part III), dealing mainly with criminal issues and asset confiscation.
Part III:
Part III of this reform focuses more specifically on the recommendations of the MONEYVAL Committee Report involving developments in the areas of investigations, prosecutions and sanctions in a twofold dimension: on the one hand in strengthening the efficiency of criminal procedure, and on the other hand in strengthening the dissuasive nature of the repressive system.
The Part III Bill is divided into two chapters:
- A first chapter designed to respond to the need to strengthen criminal procedure and, more specifically, to implement the report's recommendations for "immediate results" in 9 areas. Various measures to supplement or amend the Code of Criminal Procedure in order to introduce new requirements, extend the jurisdiction of the courts, and strengthen the powers of the authorities with regard to requisitions, undercover operations and controlled deliveries; and
- A second chapter to strengthen the deterrent effect of the criminal justice system: again to meet the need for "immediate results" in relation to 1) investigations and prosecutions into money laundering, 2) confiscation and 3) investigations and prosecutions into the financing of terrorism. A significant part of this text relates to precisions concerning the definitions of the offences of money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
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