The Court of Justice of the European Justice has ordered Romania and Ireland to pay the European Commission (EC) a lump sum of €3 million ($3.42 million) and €2 million ($2.28 million), respectively. Both Member States failed to transpose EC’s AML directive in full by the assigned deadline.
The EC had asked all Member States to transpose its AML directive into their national law by June 26, 2017. Further, the Member States were required to inform the EC about the steps taken in this direction. Romania and Ireland failed to do both tasks. Thus, on August 27, 2018, the EC approached the Court for the two States’ failure to meet the requirements. The EC sought from Romania and Ireland both a lump sum and a daily penalty payment for failing to notify it of the measures being taken to transpose the directive.
The EC withdrew its demand for a daily penalty payment once the directive was transposed completely by the Member States. However, both the countries still found the EC’s demand for a lump sum unjust and disproportionate. Nevertheless, the Court upheld the EC’s actions. It decided a lump sum amount based on the seriousness of the failure, the time-period for which the failure continued and each Member State’s ability to pay.