by Antenor Madruga, Ana Belotto and Adriano Teixeira [1]

Obligations and incentives to implement effective compliance programs have increasingly gained importance in Brazil in light of concepts like gatekeepers[2] (professionals with the potential to  identify illicit activities, due to their function and duties in corporations) and strict liability of legal entities (established in the newest Brazilian Anti-Corruption Law that came into effect in 2014 – Law n. 2,613/2013). In this sense, private individuals have also gradually seen their supervisory responsibility increase, especially under money laundering and corruption preventive obligations.

The Brazilian Anti-Money Laundering Law imposes that certain people – legal and natural – have the obligation of (i) identifying their  clients; (ii) maintain records of clients and operations and (iii) report certain financial operations that fit defined criteria.  In turn, the Brazilian regulation of the anti-money laundering law, aside from the law itself, has been inspired by the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force[3] moving towards the concept of a “risk based approach” -“RBA”[4], allowing individuals subject to the terms of the law to  be more flexible in  their evaluation of the inherent risks of each operation,  and on the prevention measures to be adopted. Continue reading →