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Between the hammer and the anvil? The anti-money laundering-complex and its interactions with the compliance industry

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. ‘The anti-money laundering complex: an empirical research on the AML complex and its interactions with the compliance-industry’ UGent, funded by FWO Vlaanderen, 01/01/2006 – 31/12/2009

  2. E.g. THONY, J., Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing: An Overview, paper IMF, 2000 (www.imf.org/external/np/leg/sem/2002/cdmfl/eng/thony.pdf), but also several policy documents relate the battle on money laundering to drug-related organised crime, for example FATF Prevention of Criminal Use of the Banking System for the Purpose of Money-Laundering, December 1988.

  3. Council Directive 91/308/EEC of 10 June 1991 on prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering.

  4. Law of 11 January 1993 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the laundering of money and financing of terrorism, B.S., 9 February 1993.

  5. In some institutions, there are specific anti money laundering officers, working for the compliance department.

  6. This definition was subsequently included in the Banking Law in 2007.

  7. As compliance officers fulfil a discrete function within banks, they are hard to find. There are no contact addresses to be found on the internet, for example. Therefore, we needed an intermediary to get us in touch with compliance departments. Febelfin agreed to cooperate, but is not allowed to give out any addresses or names, which means the only way to get the questionnaire to the compliance sections, was to ask Febelfin to send them for us.

  8. The results of this phase of the research will be used in the following, interview phase, which will be aimed at interviewing compliance and AML professionals from public and private institutions.

  9. In contrast to a decentralised approach. A decentralised approach implies the functioning of compliance units on a regional or local level, for example by use of ‘compliance antennas’.

  10. This dematerialisation obliges clients to hand in their paper bonds to the banks – the ‘dematerialisation’ refers to the transformation from paper (‘material’) bonds to bonds posted in a securities account.

  11. Programmawet van 27 april 2004, B.S., 8 mei 2007

  12. The indicators can be found in the Royal Decree of 3 June 2007 – Koninklijk besluit tot uitvoering van artikel 14quinquies van de wet van 11 januari 1993 tot voorkoming van het gebruik van het financiële stelsel voor het witwassen van geld en de financiering van terrorisme, 3 juni 2007.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editor of this special issue, Petrus van Duyne, for his critical, yet enthusiastic, comments to earlier drafts of this article. I also thank Paul Ponsaers, my promoter, for his guidance and advice and Marc Cools for his useful suggestions. Special thanks to Febelfin for their assistance and above all to the compliance officers who took the time to fill out the survey.

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  1. Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Research Group Social Analysis of Security, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Antoinette Verhage

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Verhage, A. Between the hammer and the anvil? The anti-money laundering-complex and its interactions with the compliance industry. Crime Law Soc Change 52, 9–32 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-008-9174-9

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