Aml Lebanon

Introduction:

Money laundering is any act committed with the purpose of:

1. Concealing the real source of illicit funds, or giving, by any means, a false justification

about the said source.

2. Transferring or substituting funds, while being aware of the illicit nature of these funds, for

the purpose of concealing or disguising their source, or helping a person involved in the

offence to dodge responsibility.

3. Acquiring, holding or using illicit funds, or investing such funds in purchasing movable or

immovable assets, or in carrying out financial operations, while being aware of the illicit

nature of these funds.

Any person who undertakes money laundering operations, or intervenes or participates in such

operations, shall be punishable by imprisonment for a period of three to seven years, and by a

fine of no less than twenty million Lebanese pounds.

Section I: Relations with foreign correspondent banks abroad

When establishing a relation with a foreign correspondent bank, the bank must ascertain that the

correspondent bank is not a shell bank, that it really exists, based on submitted documentary

evidence, that it does not deal with shell banks, has a good reputation, is subject to a good control

and implements sufficient and effective procedures to fight money laundering and terrorist

financing.

In addition to the foregoing, the bank must implement the following measures:

1- Obtain the approval of the Senior Executive Management before dealing with

correspondent banks.

2- Ascertain the nature of the respondent bank’s business.

3- Determine the responsibility of both the bank and the respondent bank,

particularly for payable –through accounts opened by foreign correspondent

banks, and make sure that the latter are capable, upon request, to provide

relevant customer identification data.

Section II: Relations with customers and due diligence measures

1- A customer is meant to be any natural person or legal entity, whether a company...