National and International Anti-Money Laundering Law Developing the Architecture of Criminal Justice, Regulation and Data Protection

While Anti-Money Laundering instruments are ever increasing in scope and complexity, policymakers have often lost sight of the objectives pursued. As a consequence, legislation is, in many cases, shaped by unrealistic political expectations and inconsistent design. Against this backdrop, this book explains key deficiencies of existing law and develops policy proposals to enhance both effectiveness and respect for fundamental rights. To this end, it thoroughly examines the interplay between criminal justice, regulatory law and data protection rules in Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and contrasts these findings with the frameworks of the Financial Action Task Force and of the European Union. The results of this collaborative research project emphasise the need to approach Anti-Money Laundering as a complex architecture that consists of numerous diverse but highly interdependent areas of law. Reform debates must therefore overcome a fragmented vision, in particular as regards the shape of criminal proceedings, the function of Financial Intelligence Units and supervisory authorities, the aims of private sector involvement and the scope of public-private information sharing. Only then does one learn from past mistakes and avoid ill-conceived remedies that ultimately fail to adapt supranational standards to the institutional and constitutional reality of countries' domestic legal order.

Benjamin Vogel: Head of the research group on illicit financial flows at the Max Planck Institute and, since 2013, in charge of the Institute' s desk on English criminal law. He holds law degrees from the Universities of Potsdam, Paris X and Cambridge. He is currently working on his habilitation; his research focuses on comparative law, criminal law theory, financial crime, and supranational security law.Jean-Baptiste Maillart: Research fellow at the Max Planck Institute. He holds law degrees from theUniversity of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne, the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and the University of Geneva. His PhD thesis analysed the challenges of the territoriality principle in the context of cybercrime. He is a former fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation.