## Section 1 Recent Law Amendments

The Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds and its sub-regulations, have been amended as needed, in order to respond to changes in social conditions and the amendment of other laws, from the viewpoint of preventing money laundering crime, etc.

## 1 Amendment of the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds according to the enactment of the Payment Services Act

According to the enactment of "The Payment Services Act" in April 2010, part of the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds was amended. By the enactment of the Payment Services Act, exchange transactions which only certain financial agencies such as banks used to be authorized to deal with may also be carried out by fund transfer service providers. Since it is possible to use exchange transactions for money laundering and terrorism financing, the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds has been amended, and fund transfer service providers are added to specified business operators, so they have obligation to verify customer identification, to prepare and preserve transaction records, etc., and to report suspicious transactions.

Moreover, from the standpoint of countermeasures for “Furikome” fraud, etc., activities such as receiving passbook, etc., with the intention of dealing with specified business operators while using fake identities have become punishable under the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds. Also, exchange transactions carried out by fund transfer service providers is very similar to exchange transactions using passbook, etc. in that both can be used for receiving the transferred money, and misuse and impersonation are expected in the criminal cases such as “Furikome”Fraud, so according to the enactment of the Payment Services Act, the same penal provisions were set for activities such as receiving and transferring exchange transaction card, passwords, ID, etc., needed to carry out exchange transactions by fund transfer service providers.

## 2 Amendment of the Act on prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds according to the enactment of the Commodity Exchange Act and the Act for Regulation of Business Concerning Commodities Investment

In January 2011, the Act on the Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds and the order for Enforcement of the Act on the Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds were partially amended, according to the enactment of the partial revision of the Law regarding the Commodity Exchange Act and the Act for Regulation of Business Concerning Commodities Investment "(hereinafter referred as "Amended Commodity Exchange Law").

Since the “Commodity Exchange Act” was changed to the “Commodity Futures Trading Act,” and “commission house” was changed to “commodity futures trader,” due to the enactment, etc., of the Amended Commodity Exchange Law, and since these words were quoted in the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds and the order for Enforcement of the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds, they were appropriately changed. Regarding operations carried out by commodity futures traders, actions of performing as 1) “an intermediary or representative for transaction commissions on the domestic commodity market” were newly added and those as 2) “an intermediary, agent, or representative for entrustment or consignment relating to transactions on the foreign commodity market,” and 3) “those of conducting a part of open stock derivative transactions or of performing as an intermediary agent or representative for such transactions” were prohibited except by commodity futures traders. Therefore, these actions were added subsequently to specified business affairs and specified transactions subject to customer identification obligation as regulated in the order for Enforcement of the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds.