Money laundering and terrorist funding are criminalized as separate offenses under the Slovenian Criminal Code. The penalties for money laundering and funding terrorism specified in the Criminal Code range from one to 15 years in jail, depending on the seriousness of the offense, and in some situations, a court may additionally impose a fine and seizure of money and assets in addition to imprisonment.
Under Slovenian law, legal entities can face criminal charges. Depending on the seriousness of the offense, a legal entity can be sanctioned with a fine or confiscation of property, as well as winding up the legal entity.
The AML Act imposes a variety of penalties for failure to comply with important obligations such as CDD, record-keeping, and suspicious transaction reporting. Fines vary depending on the type of infringement, the type of infringer, and whether the infringement is initial, repeated, or systematic, and can reach up to EUR 5 million, or up to 10% of the parent undertaking's annual turnover according to the parent undertaking's consolidated accounts for the previous year.
Although it appears that progress has been made in recent years in terms of ML/TF investigations, MONEYVAL has noted that the battle is not fully prioritized and that charges should be more proactive in analyzing and charging ML related to serious crime, in line with Slovenia's risk profile.
Slovenia's FATF Status
Slovenia has achieved full compliance with eleven of the 40 FATF Recommendations, which comprise the worldwide anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) standard. It retains minor inadequacies in the execution of another twenty-five Recommendations, as well as larger-scale problems in the implementation of four (national risk assessment, terrorism financing offense, virtual assets, cash couriers).
Slovenia's AML/CTF Regulators
The major AML/CTF supervisory authority is the Ministry of Finance's Office for Money Laundering Prevention (the "OMLP"). Under the AML Act, the OMLP has the ability to collect, preserve, examine, analyze, and disseminate pertinent information.
Other AML/CTF regulatory bodies are as follows:
- the Securities Market Agency,
- The Bank of Slovenia,
- the Agency for Public Oversight of Auditing,
- the Insurance Supervision Agency,
- the Slovenian Bar Association,
- the Financial Administration,
- the Market Inspectorate,
- the Slovenian Institute of Auditors,
- and the Chamber of Notaries of Slovenia.
AML Regulations Enacted in Slovenia
- The Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act, as modified (the "AML Act"), was passed on October 20, 2016.
Under the AML Act, there are more than 40 kinds of enterprises, including banks, financial institutions, payment service providers, post, insurance, reinsurance firms and intermediaries, investment funds, and, in some circumstances, attorneys and notaries.
The scope of the obliged entities is consistent with the range of the 4th and 5th AML Directives. However, the category of other persons trading in goods to the extent that amounts are made or acquired in cash of EUR 10,000 or more is not included in the list of commodities—this is because the AML Act consists of a provision prohibiting those who sell goods or provide services from accepting cash payments in excess of EUR 5,000.
