EU Parliament Approves New Anti-Money Laundering Rules including Central Registers for Beneficial Ownership

On 20 may 2015 the European Parliament approved a new anti-money laundering directive that had been adopted by the Council of the European Union on 20 April 2015 {News-2015-04-21/A/2- (previous coverage)}. The directive as approved includes the requirement that all EU Member States maintain a central register of Information on beneficial ownership of corporate and other legal entities, as well as trusts, which were added as part of the Parliamentary negotiations.

The central registers must b…