Companies and trusts will have to list their ultimate beneficial owners in public registers, under tighter anti-money laundering (AML) regulations approved by European Parliament this week.
Banks, auditors, lawyers, and real estate agents also must monitor their clients better to watch for suspicious transactions, under the AML directive approved by parliament. The goal behind the public registers, which would be housed in each member state of the European Union, is to make it more difficult for illicit proceeds to be hidden as well as to clamp down on tax evasion. Annual amounts of money laundered equates to roughly 2 percent to 5 percent of global GDP, EU officials said.
