The Revision to the European Community’s Anti-Money Laundering Instrument: Critical Analysis

On December 4, 2001, the European Community adopted Directive 2001/97 amending Directive 91/308 its main anti-money laundering instrument. Since the two Community legislative organs, the European Parliament and the Council, were in serious disagreement regarding its contents. There was never any doubt that the 1991 instrument was in need of serious revision and that a number of pertinent issues had to be addressed, namely the ambit of he entities and persons covered, the scope of the predicate or underlying offences for the criminalization of the laundering of their proceeds, the difficulties encountered in the transposition of the 1991 Directive into the domestic legal systems of the Member States and in the successful prosecution of alleged money launderers, the rather ineffective cooperation between the competent national authorities, the experience gained by other international fora devoted to combating money laundering (FATF), etc.