6 Amendments of Victor NEGRESCU related to 2016/0208(COD)
Amendment 23 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 6
Recital 6
(6) Providers of exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies (that is to say currencies declared to be legal tender) as well as custodian wallet providers for virtual currencies are under no obligation to identify suspicious activity. Terrorist groups are thus able to transfer money into the Union’s financial system or within virtual currency networks by concealing transfers or by benefiting from a certain degree of anonymity on those platforms. It is therefore essential to extend the scope of Directive (EU) 2015/849 so as to include virtual currency exchange platforms and custodian wallet providers. Competent authorities should be able to monitor the use of virtual currencies in order to identify suspicious activities. This would provide a balanced and proportional approach, safeguarding technical advances and the high degree of transparency attained in the field of alternative finance and social entrepreneurship.
Amendment 27 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 13
Recital 13
(13) FIUsinancial Intelligence Units (FIUs), as a decentralised and sophisticated network, help EU Member States to better cooperate with each other. They play an important role in identifying the financial operations of terrorist networks, especially across borders, and in detecting their financial backers. Due to a lack of prescriptive international standards, FIUs maintain significant differences as regards their functions, competences and powers. Those differences should however not affect an FIU’s activity, particularly its capacity to develop preventive analyses in support of all the authorities in charge of intelligence, investigative and judicial activities, and international cooperation. FIUs should have access to information and be able to exchange it without impediments, including through appropriate cooperation with law enforcement authorities. In all cases of suspected criminality and, in particular, in cases involving terrorism financing, information should flow directly and quickly without undue delays. It is therefore essential to further enhance FIUs’ effectiveness and efficiency, by clarifying the powers of and cooperation between FIUs.
Amendment 32 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 16
Recital 16
(16) In order to respect privacy and protect personal data, such registries should store the minimum data necessary to the performance of AML investigations. The concerned data subjects should be informed that their data are recorded and accessible by FIUs and should be given a contact point for exercising their rights of access and rectification. When transposing these provisions, Member States should set out maximum retention periods (supported by adequate reasoning as to their duration) for the registration of personal data in registries and provide for their destruction once the information is no longer needed for the stated purpose. Access to the registries and databases should be limited on a need to know basis following a risk assessment.
Amendment 33 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 17 a (new)
Recital 17 a (new)
(17a) The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) is the EU’s centre of network and information security expertise, and ENISA should be empowered to exchange information with law enforcement authorities without impediment in order to enable cyber security cooperation, which plays an important role in fighting against the financing of criminal activities, including terrorism.
Amendment 34 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 17 b (new)
Recital 17 b (new)
(17b) The European Banking Authority (EBA) should be called upon to update its transparency exercise to face today’s challenges in order to better prevent the use of financial systems for the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing.
Amendment 39 #
Proposal for a directive
Recital 22
Recital 22
(22) Public access by way of compulsory disclosure of certain information on the beneficial ownership of companies provides additional guarantees to third parties wishing to do business with those companies. Certain Member States have taken steps or announced their intention to make information contained in registers of beneficial ownership available to the public. The fact that not all Member States would make information publicly available or differences in the information made available and its accessibility may lead to different levels of protection of third parties in the Union. In a well- functioning internal market, there is a need for a coordination to avoided approach to avoid this sort of distortions.