Closing event on Jordan Legal Persons and Legal Arrangments Risk Assessment launched in Amman
AMMAN, 5 March 2023 – The EU Global Facility on Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) and the Jordanian Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Unit (AMLU) on Sunday launched a three days workshop on the topic of Jordan Legal Persons and Legal Arrangements (LP/LA) Risk Assessment Results in Amman.
The event, which constitutes a milestone in the country’s fight on AML/CFT, marks the closing of the work started by the EU Global Facility with the Jordanian authorities in August 2021. A number of stakeholders from the AMLU, the Central Bank of Jordan and the Companies Control Department along with competent authorities have worked together on designing and implementing the assessment of the AML/CFT risks and the misuse of legal persons and legal arrangements, using a leading-edge methodology.
In her opening remarks, Head of the Anti-Money Laundering Unit of Jordan, Samya Abu Sharif, noted: “the topic of today’s workshop is an indication of the important role of all national agencies in promoting the necessary actions to combat the risks of money-laundering and terrorist financing associated with legal persons and legal arrangements at the national level.”
“Understanding the potential threats, and strengthening the system to achieve increased transparency for the legal persons and the legal arrangements and developing national programmes in partnership with the private sector to reduce their impact is a crucial objective of thjs assessment work.”
“The results of the assessment presented today will help us better understand and be directed towards high-risk aspects in order to prevent criminals from exploiting legal persons and legal arrangements in ML/TF crimes,” she added.
For his part, EU Global Facility Key Expert on Beneficial Ownership Alexandre Taymans commended the “successful work and important efforts put together by Jordan to conduct this exercise in such a structured and timely manner”.
“As the dissemination of the findings of this assessment are now launched, such a milestone calls for and paves the way for an enhanced engagement between competent authorities, as well as with the private sector to ensure that the recommendations and the mitigating measures identified by the working group will be fully implemented before the next update to the risk assessment,” he stated.
The EU Global Facility has developed a dedicated methodology for the risk assessment of legal persons and arrangements to assist partner jurisdictions with a methodology that can be tailored to their specific context.
This activity is a milestone for any country implementing a BO disclosure framework as it will help them identify the risk jurisdictions are facing from the misuse of legal vehicles both at national and international level. This risk assessment is also to be put in the context of the renewed and increasing focus the FATF’s new recommendation 24 (April 2022) has put on this challenging exercise for jurisdictions considering the scope of such exercise, the number and variety of stakeholders involved and the level of technical expertise it requires.
This project is funded by the European Union.