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On Friday 23 June 2023, the third plenary of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Paris discussed and adopted the mutual evaluation report of Luxembourg.
This report assessed the effectiveness of Luxembourg's measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT), as well as its compliance with FATF recommendations.
The plenary concluded that "Luxembourg has reached a high level of technical compliance with the FATF's requirements and its AML/CFT regime is delivering good results."
The plenary felt, however, that Luxembourg should strengthen its measures in areas such as "improving the detection, investigation and prosecution of more complex money laundering cases" and "strengthen the risk-based supervision of its non-financial sector, further develop and disseminate its understanding of terrorist financing risks to both the public and private sectors and apply proportionate and dissuasive sanctions for non-compliance to its financial and non-financial sectors."
Luxembourg's Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Finance confirmed that the adoption of this report marks the penultimate stage of Luxembourg's evaluation process under the FATF's fourth round of mutual evaluations on AML/CFT.
In accordance with the procedures in place, the report will undergo a post-plenary quality and consistency review and will be circulated among FATF members and FATF-Style Regional Bodies (FSRBs). At the end of this process, which is expected to take several weeks, the report will be considered final.
The FATF will publish the final report by September 2023.
Luxembourg's justice and finance ministries noted that the country is not allowed to communicate on the details of the assessment until the report is published.
