The Argentine Securities and Exchange Commission (Comisión Nacional de Valores) has issued a new Resolution which amends Chapter XXII "Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing".
By Resolution No. 602/2012 (the "Resolution"), published in the Official Gazette on February 8, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "Comisión Nacional de Valores" or "CNV") amended its regulations on prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing, in order to adjust its internal regulations to the regulations issued by the Financial Information Unit (the "UIF", after its Spanish acronym). In this sense, it amended current Chapter XXII "Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism" of the CNV's Regulations, which is applicable to the obliged entities submitted to the control of such Organization.
Under the authority of the CNV to issue complementary regulations, and the obligations set by the UIF's resolutions, some of the regulations of such Chapter are still in force, such as, Resolution No. 580/2010 and Resolution No. 583/2010, that regulate the "Procedures of Control for the Receipt and Delivery of Funds from and to Clients", and Resolution No. 554/2009, that limits transactions in the scope of the public offering, when these are done or ordered by subjects in tax haven or countries of low taxation.
Mainly, the Resolution states that the obliged entities from the Capital Market according to Section 20, Subsections 4, 5 and 22 Law No. 25,246 and its amendments on prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing and, among others, corporations that are depositories of Mutual Funds (sociedades depositarias de Fondos Comunes de Inversión); investment agents (agentes colocadores) or any other intermediary, legal entity or natural person that may exist in the future, of Common Investment Funds, shall comply such regulation, UIF's resolutions and this regulation.
According to the Resolution, before February 28, 2012, the self-regulated entities shall issue in the scope of its competence, regulations and elaborate control proceedings, so that its intermediaries fulfill the obligations set in Section 4 Chapter XXII, and they shall file them before the CNV for its previous approval.
Finally, it should be mentioned that on February 16, 2012, the Financial Action Task Force (the "FATF") issued a report which stressed that Argentina has made in June 2011 a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF to address its strategic deficiencies on prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing and, since then, Argentina has taken steps towards improving its regime, including by enacting legislation that significantly improves Argentina's criminalization of terrorist financing; and issuing UIF Resolutions enhancing measures for the insurance, securities, and real estate sectors, and cooperatives and mutual associations. However, the FATF has determined that certain strategic deficiencies remain. In this sense, Argentina should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address these deficiencies.
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