Transparency for detecting money laundering gave way to confidentiality by court order

The European Anti-Money Laundering Directive required companies to make data on beneficiaries publicly available. Of course, this caused widespread discontent among the beneficiaries and owners of the companies.

Today, on November 22, the Court of Justice of the European Union recognized this directive as illegal. It directly violates one of the basic human rights: the protection of privacy. In addition, there are serious disagreements with the provisions on the protection of personal data.

In Luxembourg, data collection and storage was handled by the RBE. The organisation was created in the process of transferring the European directive to the laws of the Grand Duchy. Now, with the updated provisions, its future is uncertain. In fact, the body can no longer fulfill the obligations assigned to it. The Luxembourg Ministry of Justice, however, said it was analyzing the situation and would abide by European law.