On 11 March 2024, the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) has published a New Guidance on Beneficial Ownership and Transparency of Legal Arrangements (“Guidance”). The Guidance follows the February 2023 revisions to FATF Recommendation 25 on Beneficial Ownership and transparency of legal arrangements and updates the risk-based guidance for this Recommendation. The Guidance integrates the existing guidance on Recommendation 24 on legal persons and purports to help stakeholders from the public and private sectors to implement the new requirements in a more efficient manner.
Specifically, the Guidance aims to assist countries and the private sector to better understand how transparency requirements apply to legal arrangements. Specifically, it focuses on the assessment of the money laundering and terrorist financing risks associated with trusts and similar legal arrangements. In particular, attention is given on the means to obtain adequate, accurate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information for express trusts and similar legal arrangements.