On December 22, 2016, the ESAs published an open letter notifying the European Commission that they would be unable to meet the deadline of December 26, 2016 for submitting final draft RTS supplementing the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. The 4AMLD mandates the ESAs (made up of the EBA, ESMA and EIOPA) to draft RTS on the measures that banks and other financial institutions should undertake to manage the potential risks of money laundering and terrorist financing where they have branches or majority-owned subsidiaries in third countries that prohibit the implementation of AML and CTF measures consistent with those required by 4AMLD. The delay is attributed to the ESAs' prioritization of other mandates under the 4AMLD for the Joint Committee Work Programme 2016. The ESAs deprioritized the draft RTS as enquiries with regulators and ESA stakeholder groups suggested that there were no countries that prohibited the requisite implementation of AML and CFT measures. Consequently, unlike under other mandates under the 4AMLD, the draft RTS would have limited application in practice. The ESAs intend to start working on the mandate in 2017 and expect to be able to submit final draft RTS by December 31, 2017.
The letter is available at: https://esas-joint-committee.europa.eu/Publications/Letters/ESAS-2016-82_
JointLetter_RTS_on_%82_JointLetter_RTS_on_%20Implementation_Impediments_in_3rd_Countries.pdf.
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