Anti-money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Legislation and Its Impact on Private International Relations

In this paper, the author explores the rules governing the activity against the laundering of proceeds from crime and the financing of the terrorism, which are contained both in Russian legislation and in international legal acts and reveals their connection with international private relations. In the first part of the work, the author sets himself the task of considering the AML/ СFT legislation of the Russian Federation. The author identifies 5 main responsibilities of Russian financial organizations, which they implement in accordance with the norms of anti-money laundering legislation. In the second part of the work, the author analyzes, how these obligations impact international private relations, which Russian financial organizations enter into. The author concludes that the norms of the AML / CFT legislation, on the one hand, makes international private relations more open and transparent, and on the other hand, limits the ability of financial institutions to carry out their cross-border activities. In the third part, the author considers how the regulation of the activities of financial institutions in the field of AML / CFT takes place at the international level. The main conclusions reached by the author are that the regulation of the AML/ CFT activities of financial organizations at the international level occurs through the norms of “soft law”, which are intended to harmonize the “anti-money laundering” laws of the majority countries in the world. In general, the author distinguishes 3 main categories of similar norms that partially repeat each other. However, it was also highlighted a regularity, that the less mandatory these norms are, the more stringent requirements they contain to the “anti-laundering” activities of financial institutions.