Solicitors, accountants, tax advisers and estate agents are among a new extended list of professionals required to report on suspicious transactions under money-laundering regulations.
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, said yesterday he had signed EU regulations which extended the obligations concerning customer identification, record-keeping and the reporting of suspicious transactions to a number of new activities and professions.
He said the new regulations fulfilled Ireland's obligations under the European Council directive to prevent the use of the financial system for money-laundering.
It updates a 1991 directive which requires credit and financial institutions to establish the identity of their customers when opening accounts, establish the identity of non-account holders, and report suspicious transactions to the authorities.
The principle changes in the new directive extend the obligations to a limited number of activities and professions which have been shown to be vulnerable to the activities of money-launderers when participating in certain transactions with clients.
The regulations now include accountants, auctioneers, auditors, estate agents, tax advisers, solicitors, investment business firms and dealers in high-value goods such as precious stones, metals and works of art where payment is made in cash for a sum of €15,000 or more.
The list also includes casinos, although they are illegal in the Republic. This has been inserted so that the State complies fully with the directive.
Two additional categories of administration companies providing services to collective investment schemes and providers of money remittance services were included at the request of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority.
The directive details some limitations on reporting of transactions which apply to solicitors, accountants, auditors or tax advisers in relation to information they receive from a client in certain circumstances.
These circumstances are when ascertaining the legal position for a client, when defending or representing a client in or concerning judicial proceedings or when advising a client in relation to instituting, avoiding or defending judicial proceedings and whether such information is received or obtained before, during or after such proceedings.
The regulations will come into effect on September 15th.