The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine will start conducting inspections of specially designated obliged entities in the field of anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist financing (lawyers, accountants, auditors, tax consultants, etc.)

On 4 July 2023 the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated 16 June 2023 №662 came into effect, which approved the procedure for supervision over activities of specially designated obliged entities in the field of anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist financing  (hereinafter referred to as the obliged entities).

The Resolution stipulates the grounds and procedure pursuant to which Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice will conduct planned and extraordinary AML-inspections of the following obliged entities:

Ministry of Finance — auditors; accountants; business entities providing accounting services; tax consultants; business entities that provide intermediary and/or consulting services in real estate transactions; business entities that trade in precious metals and precious stones for cash; business entities that conduct lotteries and/or gambling; business entities that conduct trade activities in cultural artefacts and/or provide intermediary services in such activities.

Ministry of Justice — law offices, attorneys associations and attorneys who practice law individually; notaries; business entities providing legal services; persons who provide services for creation, operation and management of legal entities.

Planned inspections will be carried out in accordance with the schedule, which must be published no later than 10 working days before the beginning of the quarter for which the schedule plan is approved.

Unscheduled inspections will be carried out based on specific grounds (notifications about violation by the obliged entity of the requirements of the AML-legislation; pursuant to court decisions; at the initiative of the state financial monitoring entity in the event that they directly detect signs of violation by the obliged entity of AML-legislation etc.).

We recommend the business entities mentioned above to make sure that they properly fulfill their obligations in the field of AML in order to minimize the risks of the application of fines and other sanctions. The maximum amount of fines that can be imposed for these violations is more than UAH 27 million (approx. USD 0.7 million).

We remind you that professionals of PwC Legal Ukraine have a wide experience in assisting clients on AML-issues: from building internal AML-systems “from scratch” to conducting independent AML-audits. We will be glad to help you in preparation for AML-inspections.