A new report published by the Conference of the Parties of one of the Council of Europe’s Conventions, the Warsaw Convention. Georgia that has become a party to the Convention in 2014 is also covered in the report.

It is one of the 17 states that have fully transposed all the provisions of Article 10 of the Warsaw Convention, which requires states to establish corporate legal liability in their domestic legislation, including when a natural person is involved as an accessory or instigator.

In a report released today, the Conference of the Parties of Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism - also known as the “Warsaw Convention” - evaluates the extent to which 36 states have legislative or other measures in place to ensure that legal persons can be held liable for money laundering offences when they are committed on their behalf and for their benefit”.

The liability of legal persons can be particularly valuable for the effective fight against money laundering since criminals often use corporations, charities and businesses to launder their illicit gains. Through sophisticated money laundering schemes, they are frequently able to avoid any liability by disguising their involvement in crime and relying on the weakness of the systems of sanctioning legal persons and confiscating their illicit gains.

The report specifically assesses how states parties to the treaty implement the provisions of Article 10 of the treaty, which requires them to establish corporate legal liability in their domestic legislation, including when a natural person is involved as an accessory or instigator.

The report concludes that 17 countries have fully transposed all the provisions of Article 10: Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Croatia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Slovak Republic and Sweden.

35 of 36 states parties have introduced liability of legal person of money laundering offences in their legislation, as required by paragraph 1 of Article 10, mostly through general provisions of their criminal codes. However, the transposition into domestic legislation differs considerably among states. Eight out of the 36 state parties have not yet established the liability of legal persons for an offence committed by a natural person acting as an accessory or instigator.