1 July is Looming for Lawyers
By Kerry Grass, Editor for amlmag.co.nz
From 1 July 2018, lawyers will need to commence their implementation of anti-money laundering controls to fully comply with the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Finance of Terrorism Act 2009 (the Act).
Before that date arrives there is the obligation to ensure a business risk assessment has been conducted. The assessment is required to measure the likelihood of the business facilitating money laundering or financing of terrorism. The key areas requiring examination, based on known vulnerability are (a) the nature, size and complexity of the business, (b) products and services, (c) the methods of how products and services are delivered to customers, (d) customer types, (e) institutions and (f) geographies. The risk assessment needs to be sufficiently transparent so that the business can determine their risk level for each primary risk category.
Following completion of the risk assessment, the next obligation is ensuring a programme has been developed. The programme represents the policies, procedures and controls to allow the business to manage its known risks and maintain compliance with the Act.
Once the programme is complete, lawyers will need to implement the systems and controls. The implementation phase can be quite resourceful. It needs to consider matters such as client onboarding. Do any forms need to be updated? How will the identity verification records be stored? Do systems allow for a client risk profile to be entered. How will monitoring for suspicious activity work in practice? How will staff be trained?
A further obligation that must be undertaken before 1 July is the assessment of the current client base to ensure adequate documents and information are on record to identify the client’s name, date of birth and address.
For those lawyers who have not yet commenced – act now. Once the legislation kicks in, if you are not already on top of the game, you will find yourself in a difficult position of trying to catch up, whilst at the same time managing your primary business functions.