Parliament voted amendments to the Law on Measures against Money Laundering

On 16^th of May, Bulgaria’s Parliament at second reading voted to approve the amendments to the Law on Measures against Money Laundering.

The law waives the duty of lawyers to report to the State Agency for National Security (SANS) for transactions of their clients. The requirement for companies to present their internal anti-money laundering rules to the special services is also dropped out from the texts of the law.

The change was necessary as the additional obligations of the business entities caused serious reactions among the broad professional circles.

It was finally decided that non-governmental organizations and foundations as well as companies should submit data for their owners if they were not declared in another register such as the Trade Register.

Business entities will not be required to provide their internal rules on money laundering prevention and counter-terrorism to SANS, and the relevant services will have the obligation to check their internal rules at their own discretion.

Manoil Manev from GERB commented that the lawyers will not be informers. “Nobody has ever wanted it,” he said. Now the texts include their proposal, their own idea and with the consent of SANS and the whole working group, the laywers will not be reporting persons by virtue of Art. 4, only in very specific cases if someone goes and asks for advice on how to launder money or how to fund terrorism, Manev added.

On-site insurers will be obliged to inform their line managers about suspicions of money laundering or terrorist financing and thus the original text, which envisaged to report directly to SANS, has been dropped. The decision whether to inform the special services now remains with the relevant managers in the companies.

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