Legal alert no. 77

Ministerial Order 310/2018, of 4.12

The Ministerial Order (“Portaria”) 310/2018 (hereinafter “Ministerial Order”), has been published in the Official Gazette on December 4^th, 2018. It regulates article 45 of Law 83/2017, of 18.08, which establishes measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing (hereinafter "BCFT Law").

Article 45 of the BCFT Law governs the "Systematic reporting of transactions" and provides for the identification of typologies of transactions subject to communication that do not fall into the category of suspicious transactions.

The Ministerial Order defines the typologies of operations to be communicated, by the obligated entities, to the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action of the Attorney General's Office ("DCIAP") and to the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Judicial Police ("UIF"), such as the term, form and other terms of the communications.

Regarding the form and terms of communications, the single secure channel provided for suspicious transaction communications ("COS portal") is leveraged, although another communication channel may be defined by the information receiving authorities (DCIAP and UIF).

From an operational perspective, the Ministerial Order provides for its annual review by the Minister of Justice, in order to be able to update the list of operations to be reported by the obligated entities.

The Ministerial Order also establishes the existence of a list of high risk jurisdictions and territories, to be communicated to the obligated entities of the financial sector with the cooperation of the competent regulators.

Finally, Ministerial Order 310/2018, came into force, on November 5^th, 2018, the day after its publication.

Please find here the full version of the Ministerial Order.