The identification of beneficial owners in the fight against money laundering

This study, based on the results of Project BOWNET, is aimed at determining what information is available and what is needed to develop a support system which could be used by Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), Asset Recovery Offices (AROs), financial intermediaries and legal professions in the fight against money laundering, and in particular to identify beneficial owners who conceal themselves behind suspicious corporate entities. In particular, it has three objectives: 1) Understanding how EU competent authorities and intermediaries operate in investigations aimed at identifying the BO of suspicious corporate entities, what are their problems and needs and what information they use; 2) Identifying where this information is stored, how it can be accessed and what are the problems related to its dissemination; 3) Exploring how the available information could be collated to improve the activity of EU competent authorities and intermediaries in this field. This Final report presents the results of all the analyses carried out during the project1. It provides a number of suggestions for EU policy and regulatory initiatives in the AML field and it offers a range of proposals concerning support systems which could then help EU competent authorities and intermediaries when investigating the beneficial ownership of suspicious corporate entities.