Anti-Money Laundering
"BKL has demonstrated great legal reasoning and detailed preparation."
- Chambers & Partners Asia-Pacific
Overview
Regulatory environment regarding anti-money laundering (“AML”) laws and economic sanctions have grown more complicated, , and complying with relevant domestic and international laws has become a continuing challenge. We help our Korean and international clients navigate the fast-changing legal, business and regulatory landscape and minimize risks. Based on our extensive experience and in-depth expertise, we counsel clients on all aspects of AML laws and regulations, conduct independent AML audits on behalf of clients and represents client in regulatory enforcement proceedings and litigations.
Global regulatory authorities have been imposing colossal amounts of fines on various global financial institutions for alleged violations of AML regulations. Korean regulators are also tightening their grip on domestic and international financial institutions. Notably, the Korean authorities have recently shifted supervisory focus from traditional reviewing of financial institutions’ compliance with AML rules and regulations to monitoring the establishment and proper operation of risk management systems to manage high-risk factors. We closely monitor the rapidly evolving regulatory regime to provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive advice on prevention and management of AML risks.
Our group includes professionals with specialty in financial regulations and former senior public officials from the financial regulatory bodies. Through close cooperation among different practice groups and leveraging deep expertise in the relevant areas, we identify the most practical and effective solution to each regulatory issue raised by the regulatory authorities and provide the most helpful legal advice to the clients.
Key Services
We advise financial institutions, IT businesses, FinTech companies and cryptocurrency businesses on a wide variety matters relating to AML risks. Specifically, BKL (i) counsels on AML laws and regulations as well as business practices, (ii) assesses compliance risks based on the analysis of the client’s internal AML system and propose plans to minimize those risks, including improvement of internal AML controls, working protocols and manuals, and (iii) provides AML training and seminars to targeted audience.
In addition to providing advisory services on interpretation of and compliance with the current AML laws and regulations, BKL also assists clients in shaping the regulatory environment through advice regarding the legislative processes.
Under relevant Korean AML laws, financial institutions and other relevant companies such as cryptocurrency businesses are required to conduct independent AML audits, either internally or by outside experts, at least once a year. BKL has been engaged for such audit service by a number of domestic and foreign clients, including financial institutions and casino operators.
We have represented clients in all types of regulatory enforcement actions launched by Korean and foreign regulatory authorities. We also assist our clients in civil, criminal and administrative litigations in connection with alleged AML violation.
