The Council of Europe organised two training sessions on identification of ultimate beneficial owners with Kosovo authorities. Through the support of the joint EU/Council of Europe Project PECK III and as part of the cooperation with the Financial Intelligence Unit both activities aimed to strengthen the skills of authorities in relation to beneficial ownership regime and increase their practical knowledge on the identification of Ultimate Beneficial Owners of legal entities.
Training activities were conducted for 29 Compliance and Know Your Customer officials representing 9 banks in Kosovo as well as for 20 law enforcement officials representing Police, Customs, Tax administration, Anti-corruption Agency and Prosecution.
Through the presentation of the international standards and good practices as well as the scenario-based exercises the participants i) learned about the criminal misuse of legal persons and legal arrangements, ii) strengthened their knowledge on the various steps they could take to identify the beneficial owners of legal persons and legal arrangements and iii) raised their awareness on various mechanisms they could use, domestically and internationally, to access the beneficial ownership information. Participants also discovered and discussed the challenges they might face in identifying beneficial owners. A Step-by-step Guide on identification of Ultimate Beneficial Owners is developed by PECK III Project to complement the knowledge and will assist the reporting entities in meeting their obligations under the Law on Prevention of Laundering and Combating Terrorist Financing.
It is crucial for reporting entities (including banks) to know who the beneficial owners of their customers are so that they can adequately assess the level of money laundering and terrorist financing risks associated with their corporate customers and apply a risk-based approach, whereas for law enforcement this is an integrated part of ML/FT investigations. As part of the efforts to increase the transparency of beneficial ownership in Kosovo, the PECK III Project will continue to support Kosovo authorities in strengthening the Beneficial Ownership transparency regime.
