Art. 1 Establishment and scope of action | Anti-money laundering authority regulation (AMLAR) | AML

This is the foundational article of the regulation, establishing the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) and setting out its core purpose.

It defines the legal boundaries within which the Authority operates, anchoring it to a suite of existing EU legislative acts on AML/CFT, and lays out the overarching objectives the Authority is created to pursue.

These objectives centre on protecting the integrity of the Union's financial system, preventing money laundering and terrorist financing, ensuring supervisory quality and convergence, and supporting coordination between Financial Intelligence Units.

Notably, the article also preserves the Commission's own enforcement powers under the Treaties, meaning the Authority's existence does not displace the Commission's role in ensuring compliance with Union law.

Important points:

The Authority (AMLA) is formally established by this article and must act within the scope of a defined set of existing EU regulations and directives.
The Authority's objectives include preventing ML/TF, ensuring high-quality AML/CFT supervision across the internal market, and supporting coordination between FIUs and other competent authorities.
The Commission retains its own powers to ensure compliance with Union law, independent of the Authority's establishment.

1. The Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (‘the Authority’) is hereby established.
1. The Authority shall act within the powers conferred on it by this Regulation, in particular those set out in Article 6, and within the scope of Regulation (EU) 2023/1113, Directive (EU) 2024/1640 and Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, as well as all directives, regulations and decisions based on those acts, of any further legally binding Union act which confers tasks on the Authority, and of national legislation transposing Directive (EU) 2024/1640, and other directives conferring tasks on supervisory authorities.
1. The objective of the Authority shall be to protect the public interest, the stability and integrity of the Union’s financial system, and the proper functioning of the internal market by:
  1. preventing the use of the Union’s financial system for the purposes of money laundering and terrorist financing (‘ML/TF’);
  2. contributing to the identification and assessment of ML/TF risks and threats across the internal market, as well as risks and threats originating from outside the Union that impact, or have the potential to impact, the internal market;
  3. ensuring high-quality supervision in the area of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (‘AML/CFT’) across the internal market;
  4. contributing to supervisory convergence in the area of AML/CFT across the internal market;
  5. contributing to the harmonisation of practices in the detection of suspicious transactions or activities by Financial Intelligence Units (‘FIUs’);
  6. supporting and coordinating the exchange of information between FIUs, and between FIUs and other competent authorities.
2. The provisions of this Regulation are without prejudice to the powers of the Commission, in particular pursuant to Article 258 TFEU, to ensure compliance with Union law.