On 6 October 2017, the Ministry for Justice & Human Rights passed the regulations supporting Act 27693, the law creating the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF-Peru). This brings professional football clubs and the Public Procurement Agency “Perú Compras” under the jurisdiction of the Anti-Money Laundering & Financing of Terrorism scheme; it also requires notaries to report any transaction they find to be suspicious to the UIF.

The provisions in the regulations set out the UIF’s powers and responsibilities, as well as the obligation of the entities bound by them, whether they be public-sector bodies, legal or natural persons, to deal in a timely manner with the information requests made by the UIF. The regulation also makes provisions for reaching cooperation agreements with the SBS (Peru’s Banking & Insurance Authority) to establish conditions and procedures for delivering the information required.

The regulation empowers the UIF to request access to private banking and taxation data through the corresponding criminal court judge; if the court so authorizes, financial institutions and/or the tax authorities must make the information available immediately.

The UIF can also freeze funds and put blocks on other types of assets nationwide as a preventative measure, forbidding the withdrawal, transfer, use, conversion, provisioning or movement of funds or other assets that are suspected of having links to AML/FT. In accordance with clause 11, article 3 of Act 27693, this measure will be employed when the circumstances require urgent action or when a delay would be dangerous, and provided that the scope and nature of the investigation warrant it.

Those entities falling within the scope of these regulations are responsible for implementing an anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism scheme and for encouraging an internal culture that fosters its development. In the specific case of legal persons, this obligation will fall on the Board of Directors and on senior management or the relevant management officers when the institution’s articles of incorporation do not require it to have a Board.

The preventative mechanism entails making the Compliance Officer (CO) – to be appointed by the regulated subjects – responsible for supervising its appropriate implementation and operation. This officer must act as the liaison between the regulated subject and the UIF. If the regulated subject is supervised by the SBS or the SMV (the Securities Market Authority), the Compliance Officer should have management status within the entity.

The regulation develops the requirements and responsibilities of the Compliance Officer, as well as the possibility of appointing a corporate compliance officer when an economic group is involved, provided the UIF authorizes this, and provided that authorization by the heads of the supervisory bodies of the economic group’s other members is given, where this is applicable.

The regulated subjects must keep a record of transactions, which should be stored for between five (5) and ten (10) years, counting from the transaction date, depending on the nature of the regulated subject. A spare copy must be kept that should be made available to the UIF, to the supervisory body, to the courts and any other competent authorities.

In the case of transactions viewed as suspicious, these must be reported to the UIF by the regulated subjects via the Compliance Officer. This reporting must take place no later than twenty-four (24) hours after the transaction has been classified as suspicious.

The regulation establishes the obligation on the part of regulated subjects to have: (i) an AML/FT prevention and risk management manual, which sets out the policies, mechanisms and procedures for ML/FT prevention and detection, and (ii) a Code of Conduct describing the guiding principles, values and policies that must be applied when dealing with ML/FT risk exposure, as well as measures to ensure the duty of general confidentiality around the information accessed about the system for AML/FT prevention. All administrative and operations staff, employees, the compliance officer and members of the board must be made aware of these documents, and there must be a written record that they know about them.

Apropos of the agreement referred to in the second paragraph, the SBS has recently published Resolution 4353-2017, laying down how companies in the financial system and the Tax Authorities should submit information protected by bank secrecy regulations and taxation data to the UIF Financial Intelligence Unit.

Similarly, Banco de la Nación, savings & loan cooperatives and companies listed as not authorized to trade public funds under section 16 of the General Financial & Insurance Systems Act and the Organic Act of the SBS, must send the UIF an Excel spreadsheet with a summary table using the format described in Appendix I under the heading “Format for submitting information protected by bank secrecy regulations to the Peruvian UIF”. It must contain the following client information:

a)   Number of the account reported

b)   Name of the reporting institution

c)    Date and time of the transaction

d)   Banking agent (SBS code) where applicable

e)   Transaction number

f)    Currency

g)   Type of transaction

h)   Amount of the transaction

i)     Brief description of the transaction

j)        General classification of the transaction (SBS)

k)   Data on the second related party in the transaction

The information specified above must be sent over secure electronic communications that guarantee both proper transmission and confidentiality; UIF-Peru will confirm reception by the same means.