On 16 April 2026, the EU’s new Anti-Money Laundering Authority (“AMLA”) opened a public consultation process in respect of its draft Guidelines on business-wide risk assessment (“BWRA”) under Article 10(4) of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (“AMLR”) (the “Draft Guidelines).
The Draft Guidelines aim to develop a harmonised approach to BWRAs that is applied consistently across Member States and set out the core principles, methodology, sources of information and minimum requirements that must be considered by in-scope entities (“Obliged Entities”) when conducting the BWRA. The deadline for submission of responses to the consultation process is by 15 July 2026.
The requirement to carry out a BWRA is already a feature of Irish law, as section 30A of the Criminal Justice Act 2010 (as amended) currently establishes the requirement for ‘designated persons’ to conduct a business risk assessment to identify and assess the risks of money laundering (“ML”) and
