Emma BondThe EBA has published its report on its assessment of competent authorities’ responses to the 2020 Luanda Leaks.
The Luanda Leaks involved the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) publishing hundreds of leaked documents relating to the financial affairs of the daughter of a former Angolan president. The European Parliament called on the EBA to conduct an inquiry into the Leaks. This represented the EBA’s first use of its investigative tool under Article 9a(5) of the EBA Regulation, which empowers it to perform risk assessments of the strategies, capacities and resources of competent authorities to address the most important emerging risks relating to money laundering and terrorist financing.
EBA’s findings show that competent authorities across the EU adopted significantly different approaches for identifying and tackling the money laundering and terrorist financing risks highlighted by the leaks, and that these approaches varied beyond what the EBA would have expected under a risk-based approach. Further, not all competent authorities made use of existing cooperation channels to exchange information relating to their risk exposure. On the other hand, EBA noted good practice in some Member States, such as competent authorities putting processes in place to identify and react to cases of crystallised money laundering and terrorist financing risks.
