Vatican Adopts Anti-Money Laundering and Other International Monetary Rules

The Vatican yesterday took several related steps to come into compliance with the anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing norms created by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force. The moves, which implement the 2009 Monetary Convention Between the Vatican City State and the European Union, were previewed by a USA Today article on Wednesday.  The Vatican's action comes as Italian courts refused to release funds of the Vatican Bank seized in September by Italian authorities in a money laundering investigation. (See prior posting.)  As summarized by a communique issued yesterday by the Vatican's Secretariat of State (full text), the Vatican adopted four new laws: (1) a law to prevent money laundering and financing of terrorism; (2) a law on fraud and counterfeiting; (3) a law on Euro banknotes; and (4) a law regarding Euro coins.

In a related action, Pope Benedict XVI yesterday issued an Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio (full text) decreeing that the new laws implementing the Monetary Convention are to apply to all entities related to the Vatican, which includes the Vatican Bank. [corrected- thanks Marc Puckett]. The Pope also set up a new agency, the Autorita di Informazione Finanziaria (AIF), to implement the new laws, and conferred jurisdiction on Vatican judicial bodies to to exercise penal jurisdiction over money laundering and terrorism financing offenses. The new laws take effect April 1, 2011.

A release from the Vatican Press Office commenting on the new laws says in part:

Today's publication of new laws for Vatican City State, for the dicasteries of the Roman Curia and for the Institutions and Entities dependent on the Holy See, is an important normative development, but also has far-reaching moral and pastoral significance.

As of today, all organisations associated with the government of the Catholic Church - and with the Church's "support": Vatican City State - have, in a spirit of sincere collaboration, become part of that system of juridical principles and instruments which the international community is creating with the aim of guaranteeing just and honest coexistence in an increasingly globalised world...