SEC Partners with Government Agencies and Philippines Police to Combat Money Laundering

The SEC signed a data-sharing agreement with the Philippines police and other government agencies as a part of the country’s fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has partnered with the Philippines police and several other government agencies to share data on beneficial owners of firms and other regulated entities. An agreement was signed between the Philippine National Police, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) and the SEC as part of the nation’s fight against terrorist funding and money laundering.

As per the agreement, the SEC is responsible to provide access and accurate beneficial ownership information to the agencies in line with the recommendations of FATF (Paris-based global money-laundering watchdog).

The data-sharing agreement aims to protect personal and sensitive data to incorporate measures under the Republic Act 10173, or the Data Privacy Act of 2012. It implements the rules and regulations, well as the pertinent circular issued by the National Privacy Commission on data sharing between government agencies. The SEC collects beneficial ownership information from its regulated entities as part of its mandate of being the country’s corporate regulator. 

This is done via the SEC Memorandum Circular (MC) No 15, Series of 2019 which added the general information sheet to include beneficial ownership information. Later in 2020, the SEC introduced SEC MC No. 30, Series of 2020 to expand the beneficial ownership data gathering from foreign corporations. Likewise, in 2021, the SEC also issued MC No. 1 series of 2021 or the laws to prevent the misuse of corporations for illicit activities through measures designed to promote transparency. 

To further strengthen the regulations over these bodies, last year, the SEC introduced MC No. 10 Series of 2022 to increase charges with additional non-financial penalties for non-disclosure/false disclosure of beneficial ownership information among others.

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