The Directive (EU) 2018/843 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 amending Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of Money Laundering or terrorist financing, and amending Directives 2009/138/EC and 2013/36/EU has been published in OJEU L 156/43 6.2018.
Overview : The new Directive provides a definition of virtual currency. Pursuant to the Directive, a virtual currency is a digital representation of value that is not issued or guaranteed by a central bank or a public authority, is not necessarily attached to a legally established currency and does not possess a legal status of currency or money, but is accepted by natural or legal persons as a means of exchange and which can be transferred, stored and traded electronically (art. 1, 2 (d)).
The new Directive aims to both detect and examine cash laundering and stop it from occurring.It will now be required operators of virtual currency exchanges, custodian wallet providers for virtual currencies, persons trading or acting as intermediaries in the trade of art works worth at least EUR 10.000 to comply with EU anti-money laundering rules. Financial inspection agencies will be allowed access to information which will enable them to associate virtual currency addresses to the identity of the owner of the virtual currency. The directive extends access to a central register by allowing anyone to access the information on the register if they can demonstrate a legitimate interest. Member States may choose to make the information available more broadly. The registers will be interconnected across Member States through a common platform. The directive does not specify any minimum safeguards that Member States should apply to protect the security and confidentiality of sensitive commercial or personal information filed on the register. Member States are required to ensure that breaches of these obligations are subject to effective, proportionate and dissuasive measures or sanctions.Operators that accept to receive cryptocurrencies as payment will need to account for them in order to correctly register them in the budget according to the law of the countries in which they operate.
Provided by George Tserkezis.Dr.Jur.,Attorney at Law
Subject : “Clarification on the prescription of the default interests claims of a public contractor occurring from a municipal work project pursuant to art.137 par.1 L.4070/2012”
Concerning the : “Competent authority to grant permission to business that install and maintain lifts, to lead inspections and keep a register of lifts”
The subject matter is the inclusion of municipal legal entities under private law within the scope of Article 19 of Law 1715/1951, in conjunction with Article 276 of Municipal and Communal Code (MCC).
Τhe law provides only for the single person non - profit municipal utilities. According to the study's conclusion, the privilege of Article 19 of Law 1715/1951 is attributed to municipal utilities and civil non-profit companies, if they involve legal entities who have already that privilege, independently.
A short survey by George Tserkezis, J.D.Attorney at law
Some of the main features of the crypto-currencies and specially of the popular Bitcoin,like anonymity even within the community of its users,the easy transborder transfer of money dispensed of formalities, their convertibility to official currencies,the transactions’ transparence which allows to every user to verify every transaction passed into the blockchain, the safety provided to the owner of the wallet αgainst loss,theft or fraud by means of an individual key,the exclusion of the replicability and forgery,as well as their limited number of emission,although attractive to interested users,hide risks and result legal concerns worth of a particular attention.
The transposition of the Directive 2014/104 of the European Parliament and European Council into the legal system of Greece was made by the Law 4529/2018 (published in the Official Journal A΄ /56/23.3.2018) regarding certain rules governing actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions of the Member States and of the European Union Text with EEA relevance.
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