Spillemyndigheden, the Danish gambling authority, has issued three orders and a reprimand to Mr Green Limited for breaching the country’s anti-money laundering act.
Following an AML compliance inspection of the operator, the orders were administered to Mr Green by the authority on April 10 for AML breaches on risk assessment, on procedures for internal controls and for failing to ensure that controls are carried out.
In addition, the reprimand was handed to the operator for breaching the rules on notification in the AML act.
Regarding insufficient risk assessment, Spillemyndigheden stated that the decision was made as “no separate risk assessment has been made of the individual identified risks associated with Mr Green’s business model, including payment solutions, and the risk factors associated with it”.
The authority noted that section 7(1) of the AML act states that undertakings subject to the act must “identify and assess the risk that the undertaking may be misused for money laundering or terrorist financing”.
The risk assessment must feature a “separate assessment of the risk of the individual payment solutions and delivery channels, as well as a separate risk assessment of the risk factors associated with these”, to which Spillemyndigheden said the operator did not comply.
Regarding insufficient and lack of business procedures, Spillemyndigheden claimed that Mr Green doesn’t have “adequate procedures for internal controls, as these do not describe the interval at which controls should be performed”, as well as no “written procedures on how to monitor that controls are carried out”.
The authority remarked that section 8(1) of the AML act states that undertakings subject to the act must have “adequate written business procedures, which must include internal control”.
In addition, business procedures should describe how listed areas are handled, and internal control also means that “there must be controls of whether the controls are being carried out” as well as being checked.
Spillemyndigheden asserted that the operator “has not sufficiently complied with the commitments on business procedures for controls”.
Regarding lack of documentation of controls, Spillemyndigheden declared that Mr Green hasn’t “documented that controls have been carried out to verify that the internal controls have been performed”.
The authority commented that under the same section 8(1) of the AML act, undertakings subject to the act must “document the controls that have been carried out”, which it says Mr Green has not complied with the obligations to “perform controls to ensure that the internal controls are performed”.
Regarding the reprimand for not making an immediate notification, Spillemyndigheden noted that it was given to Mr Green as the operator, in two cases, did not comply with the requirement of immediately notifying the Money Laundering Secretariat.
The authority commented that section 26(1) of the AML act states that an undertaking “must immediately notify the Money Laundering Secretariat if the undertaking knows, suspects or has reasonable grounds to suspect that a transaction, funds or activity is or has been related to money laundering or terrorist financing”, a demand which it says Mr Green didn’t comply with.
Spillemyndigheden has instructed Mr Gren to submit a revised risk assessment by June 10, 2024, as well as a revised business procedure for internal controls and prepared business procedures for how the implementation of controls is monitored.
In addition, the operator must also submit documentation that it has been controlled and that the “controls have been carried out” to the authority by October 10, 2024.
The authority added that “the reprimand does not entail any obligation to act on the part of Mr Green Limited as the breach no longer exists”.