Ireland levies first fine under money laundering law

The Central Bank of Ireland has reprimanded and fined the Dublin-based life assurance arm of Swiss bank UBS after it failed to comply in a timely manner with anti money-laundering legislation introduced in 2010.
The CBI said it had fined UBS International Life Limited (UBSIL) 65,000 euros ($81,900) for failing to instruct its staff on changes to the law embodied in the Criminal Justice Act 2010.
"This is the first fine we have issued under this anti money-laundering legislation," said CBI spokeswoman K atie Philpott.
The law, which came into force in July 2010, is designed to protect Ireland's financial system from exposure to money laundering and terrorist financing, the CBI said.
The CBI also said UBSIL had failed to show it was adequately checking information on policy holders provided by third parties, thus failing to comply fully with "know your customer" requirements.
UBSIL had also failed to adopt adequate written policies and procedures for identifying and reporting suspicious transactions, the CBI said.
"The breaches identified related to delays by UBSIL in implementing certain requirements of the act after it was implemented on 15 July, 2010," said UBS in a statement, adding that it had dealt with all the control weaknesses identified.
A spokesman for UBS said UBSIL had worked closely with the CBI to redress the control weaknesses, and had received a near 30 percent discount on the fine originally proposed as a result, adding that UBSIL had not committed any contraventions in doing business.

Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at www.launderingmoney.com and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com http://launderingmoney.com