• Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission.

• Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Unit.

• Public-Private Partnership Unit / Prime Ministry

Partnership between the Public & Private sector Law:

A Framework for Disclosure in Public-Private Partnership Projects

Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law No. 46 of 2007 and its amendments

Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Unit Homepage

 

October 2020

The Partnership Unit between the Public and Private Sectors in the Cabinet is committed to implementing Law No. 17/2020 (Partnership between the Public & Private sector Law) article (8):

1. Opening a special account for the unit’s spending on developing partnership projects in which the funds that the government may allocate for the partnership projects, grants, donations, aid, donations and any other resources received are deposited in it, funds will be subjected to the approval of the Council of Ministers if they are from a non-Jordanian source.
2. Expenditure is made from the account for the purposes of financing studies, research and reports related to partnership projects, contracting with consultants, seeking assistance from experts, offering bids and covering the expenses that may arise, without signing partnership contracts.
3. All matters related to the account, including the formation of a committee to supervise it, shall be determined in accordance with a regulation issued for this purpose.

 

Jordan has recently adhered to the Disclosure Framework in Public – Private Partnership Project prepared by the World Bank. In addition, that they work with the utmost transparency and according to the best international practices for integrity and objectivity when preparing, proposing and negotiating partnership projects.

The Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission established a department for combating money laundering in corruption crimes within the Commission’s Investigation Directorate. At the same time, the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission submitted a draft amendment to the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Law No. (13) for the year 2016 to explicitly include the provision that the crime of money laundering be considered an act of corruption In Article (16) of the mentioned law, the draft is currently under constitutional procedures

– Increasing the number of notifications addressed by the authority to the anti-money laundering unit regarding investigative cases referred to the Attorney General, which resulted in a financial impact and alternately risking the unit with investigative cases of financial weight, in which the investigation is carried out in parallel with the investigation of corruption crimes.

– Notify the anti-money laundering Unit about the information received by the Authority that is outside its jurisdiction in the event of suspicions of money laundering in order to take the necessary legal requirements by it.

May 2020

The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Law No. 46 of 2007 regulates all aspects related to fighting the crime of money laundering and terrorism financing and punishing its perpetrators. In accordance with the law, the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Unit was established as an independent unit, linked to the Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan, and specializes in receiving notifications related to any suspected operations related to money laundering or financing terrorism.

The Unit has the right to exchange information with international counterpart units on the condition of reciprocity, and that this information is used only for purposes related to fight money laundering and terrorism financing. With the condition of obtaining the approval of the counterpart unit that provided that information and the unit has the ability to conclude memoranda of understanding with counterpart units to organize cooperation in this regard.

Adding that the unit is a member in the EGMONT group since 2012 and has commented and participated in many papers issued by the group.

Along with many procedures done on the national level to fight money laundering, there are the following:

-National assessment of the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing according to the methodology of the International Monetary Fund by 30 national stakeholders, including the private sector participated in the process of conducting the national assessment of the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing and provided information by answering the prepared questionnaires, and attending the workshops held for the purposes of analyzing the results.

-According to the mentioned assessment, a national strategy has been prepared to fight money laundering and terrorism financing for the years 2019-2021, which aims to help reduce the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing in Jordan and to enhance the efforts made by all sides to combat these two crimes.

As for the most prominent efforts made in the field of strengthening the relationship between the unit and the private sector in the field of exchanging information related to notifications about operations suspected of being linked to money laundering or terrorist financing:

1.The Unit provides feedback to the reporting parties;

2.Development of an online system to notify about suspects linked to money laundering and terrorism financing of the unit go (AML);

3.Guiding manual to fight money laundry and terrorism financing for banks, exchange companies and payment service providers in Jordan;

4.The Unit participates in numerous meetings, conferences and training workshops held for the private sector. It also provides presentations for the purposes of capacity building and awareness raising in the field of fighting money laundering and terrorism financing.

The Unit publishes its annual reports on its website, which includes the activities of the unit at the national, regional and international levels, and statistics on reporting and reports received by the Unit about operations suspected of being linked to money laundering and terrorism financing.

In addition, the Asset Recovery and Anti-Money Laundering Department at JIACC coordinates with the authority concerned to implement the national strategy to fight money laundering and terrorism financing.

1. Establish stronger partnerships between governments, regulators, law enforcement, financial intelligence units and the business sector to discover and prevent the flow of illicit funds and enable the private sector to act as a more effective first line.

2.Encourage all authorities and institutions, wherever applicable law permits, to improve the exchange of information between law enforcement authorities, financial information units, regulators and banks, and within and between participants from the private sector, both at the local level and across borders.

3.Effective implementation of the global standards of the Financial Action Task Force to combat money laundering and anti-terrorist financing, and support the work of the Financial Action Team to address barriers to information exchange between jurisdictions and within each financial group.

4.In the non-financial professional services sector, it is proposed to effectively regulate and oversee the legal, accounting, real estate and corporate services sectors and support the promotion of global industry best practices in these sectors to support the full and consistent implementation of FATF standards worldwide.

5. Cooperate, share experiences and work with governments and other stakeholders to help prevent corrupt funds from reaching legitimate investment and real estate markets. And working with the private sector to eradicate corrupt people who facilitate corruption or collude with them and to deny them the opportunity to carry out professional activities in the future.

 

In this context, it should be noted that the national legislation does not give the money-laundering unit the authority to share its information with the private sector in accordance with the provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Funding Act in force. in the event of an investigative case in order to preserve the confidentiality of information and the investigation, and despite that, the unit can in This framework – and according to the requirements of international standards and best practices in particular – sharing strategic analysis reports, patterns, trends, and indicators related to money laundering and terrorist financing and providing feedback on the quality of notifications of suspicious operations and their fate and awareness And training for the private sector in the area of ​​combating money laundering and terrorist financing and the dangers of these two crimes, which all fall within the establishment of effective partnerships between the public and private sectors, according to the papers issued by the FATF Group and the Egmont Group (Public Private Partnership).