Airing Dirty Laundry: Reforming the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Regime in Malaysia

Abstract

Abstract Dealing with money laundering has been one of the toughest struggles nations around the world, including Malaysia, have had to face. Prevalent international concerns over such crime have led to the establishment of international policies and standards by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which aimed at preventing and ultimately criminalising such crime within the national boundary. In accordance with such policies, Malaysia has introduced the Anti-Money Laundering Act in 2001 (AMLA) as a legal modality in governing such crime. It has been amended and renamed the AMLATFA in 2003 to include terrorism financing. Again, recently in late 2013, AMLATFA has been amended to keep up with changing standards and times. Within this legal landscape, this paper will highlight the instrumental and normative problems surrounding the said legislation. The authors contend that despite the adherence to global governance standards, legal deficiencies in the AML/ATF law in Malaysia remained, which merits urgent attention and action from the relevant authorities. This paper employs a doctrinal legal research and secondary data of which the AMLATFA is the primary source. The secondary sources for this article include decided cases, articles in academic journals, books and online databases.