Resolution 129/2024 of the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF)

On August 19, 2024, the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) issued Resolution 129/2024, approving the amendment to the regulation of summary proceedings to enforce the sanctions established in Chapter IV of Law 25246 on the Prevention of Money Laundering, Financing of Terrorism, and Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (AML/TF/TP).

 

Less than two months ago, through Resolution 90/2024, the UIF approved a new regulation for summary proceedings, which incorporated the expedited procedure. The expedited procedure gives reporting entities the chance of acknowledging non-compliance, accepting a reduced sanction, and rectifying the infringement and the damage to the prevention system faster and closer in time to the inspection in which the breach was detected.

 

With this amendment, the UIF aims to achieve a higher level of compliance with Recommendation 35 of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), according to which member states—such as Argentina—should ensure a range of effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions for non-compliance by reporting entities, their directors and management with their AML/TF/TP obligations.

 

The main amendments introduced to the expedited procedure are:

 

• The scope of infringements covered is extended: it will also apply to noncompliance of the reporting entities' obligations to write suspicious transaction reports, and not only to their formal obligations.

 

• New guidelines for determining sanctions: a fine equivalent to the total value of the goods or transactions involved will apply in cases where the noncompliance was related to the omission of reporting suspicious transactions, or when such transactions were reported without complying with the terms and conditions the regulations in force establish. In such cases, it will be possible to pay the amount in two equal, monthly, and consecutive installments. Therefore, the defendants must only pay the first installment at the time of accepting the application of the expedited proceeding and the commitment to remedy the non-compliances subject to the summary proceedings within three months.

 

•  Flexibilization of requirements for the exemption of inclusion in the prior sanctions record: the final resolution of this type of proceedings will not open a record and will not be computed for recidivism, provided that an infringement is not committed again within three years from the date of the resolution (previously, this term was five years).

 

• The expedited proceeding may be applied to ongoing proceedings: in summary proceedings pending resolution as of August 19, 2024, the defendants have 90 days—as of the date of the Resolution was published—to request the determination of the corresponding sanctions.

 

The Resolution is in force as of August 19, 2024.