‘Anti-money Laundering Law and Policy as a double edged Sword!’

Abstract

The thesis of this paper was drawn from the author’s presentation to security agencies in Kampala in August 2019.2 In his presentation, the author opined that investigations into money laundering offences should be triggered when a financial institution forms suspicions of potential money laundering offences to have been committed.3 Some of the questions he sought to answer during the presentation was whether sharing information on “accountable persons or the regulated sector” in Uganda’s AML 2013 with newspapers before investigations are concluded doesn’t amount to tipping off presumed money laundering culprits? How should investigations be conducted? The foregoing questions call upon oversight agencies not to be overzealous when conducting investigations into suspicious money laundering transactions but to ensure caution and desired due diligence. This proposition does not mean that oversight agencies like Bank of Uganda (BoU) or the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) or any other oversight agencies for that matter should not carry out the required investigations. It should also be noted that banks are bound by contracts with clients and therefore ill-advised disclosure of information to a newspaper could amount to a breach of contract. Information can only be shared under compulsion by the law or to protect the public from harm, which is the main responsibility of security agencies.4 What happens if “accountable persons or those the Statute is designed to regulate” who are being investigated and have been published in newspapers are found to be innocent after they have been named and shamed? This would jeopardize the interests of the bank involved in many ways, not least that it could find itself involved in protracted costly litigations. The purpose of the paper is therefore to articulate the intricate balance of the need for regulation and ensuring that businesses are able to operate with minimal interference.