Changes to the Anti-Money Laundering Measures Act

In order to stop money laundering activities through the financial system, an Act to amend the Anti-Money Laundering Measures Act (AMLA) was introduced by the Council of Ministers on 28 April 2023.

On 14 July 2023, the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Anti-Money Laundering Measures was promulgated in Държавен вестник, брой 60. The Law aims to define a range of entities that are obliged to apply anti-money laundering measures in case of suspected transactions with funds of unclear origin.

The amendments to the law introduce a mechanism for the identification of entities that provide company management services - incorporation, registration, organization of the activities of a trader or other legal entity, fiduciary management of property, services for the provision of a management address, correspondence or other similar for the purposes of registration and operation of a legal entity and other entities referred to in Article 4(6) of the MLIA.

Such persons may be lawyers, accountants, tax advisors, persons who carry out real estate brokerage by profession, etc. They must be entered in a public electronic register with the Minister of Justice.

With the new regulation, obliged persons under the MIPA are obliged to keep up-to-date information about their clients and the operations or transactions carried out by them, as well as to update the information received periodically. Another obligation is to perform due diligence on a client of an obligated entity under the MIPA for discrepancies between beneficial ownership information in the Commercial Register and the Register of Non-Profit Legal Entities and beneficial ownership information established through other channels.

The law aims to introduce into Bulgarian legislation the measures set out in the Action Plan with measures to address Bulgaria's follow-up commitments after accession to the Exchange Rate Mechanism II (ERM II), the Action Plan to mitigate the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing, established in the National Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment, and the recommendations of the Report on Bulgaria of the Fifth Assessment Round of the Council of Europe's Committee of Experts on Money Laundering (MONEYVAL).

The law shall enter into force on the day of its promulgation, namely 14 July 2023. As regards the entry of persons carrying out certain activities on a professional basis in a special register, the law shall enter into force 6 months after its promulgation, on 14 January 2024.

KGK's KGK Law Firm can assist you in all the obligations regulated by the Anti-Money Laundering Act, in the preparation of all the necessary documents as well as in the implementation of the due actions.