May 19, 2016
Further to Circular C125, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (‘CySEC’), wishes to inform the Regulated Entities of the following:
1. A Directive has been issued by MOKAS (attached in Greek only), which clarifies the Regulated Entities’ reporting obligations in relation to the publicly available list of persons (legal and natural) which are included into the documents of Mossack Fonseca, referred to as “Panama Papers”.
2. Based on the above, the Regulated Entities that have identified any business relationship with persons included into the Panama Papers, are required to:
i. Review and update their customers’ identification documents and data/information included in their economic profile,
ii. Review and thoroughly examine their customers’ activity and transactions, to determine whether suspicions over money laundering activities arise,
iii. Reassess, and where necessary, reclassify their customers’ risk categorisation in accordance to the risk based approach which they internally apply.
3. The regulated Entities are directed to the CySEC’s Circular CI144-2014-06, with subject ‘Serious Tax Offences’, which is relevant to this issue.
It is emphasized that the CySEC expects from the Regulated Entities to facilitate the continuous monitoring of the issue relating to the Panama Papers and the ongoing monitoring of the business relationships with their customers as required by the Prevention and Suppression of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law of 2007-2016 and the CySEC Directive DI144- 2007-08 of 2012 for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.