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L.N. 312 of 2021
CRIMINAL CODE
(CAP. 9)
Facilitating the Use of Financial and other Information for the  
Prevention, Detection, Investigation or Prosecution of certain 
Criminal Offences Regulations,  2021
IN EXERCISE of the powers c onferred by article 701 of the
Criminal Code, the Minister responsible for justice, has made the
following regulations:-
Citation and 
scope.1. (1) The title of these regulations is the Facilitating the
Use of Financial and other Information for the Prevention, Detection,
Investigation or Prosecution of certain Criminal Offences Regulations,
2021.
(2) The scope of these regulations is to transpose Directive
(EU) 2019/1153 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20June 2019 laying down rules facilitating the use of financial and otherinformation for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution
of certain criminal offences, and repealing Council Decision 2000/632/
JHA.
Interpretation. 2. In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires:
Cap. 9."designated authorities" means the Executive Police, the
Attorney General and any Magistrate conducting inquiries relati ng to
the in genere  in terms of article 546 of the Criminal Code;
Cap. 373."financial analysis" means the re sults of operational and strat egic
analysis that has already been carried out by the Unit in the pursuance
of its tasks and functions under article 16(1) and (f) of the Prevention
of Money Laundering Act;
Cap. 373."financial information" means any type of information or date,
such as data on financial assets, movements of funds or financi al
business relationships, which is already held by the Unit to prevent,
detect and effectively combat money laundering and terrorist
financing, other than information or data gathered or held by the Unitin relation to its supervisory function under article 16(1)(c),  article
16(1)(k)(ii), and article 26 of the Prevention of Money Launder ing
Act;
"law enforcement information" means any type of information or
data, including but not limited to information on investigation s,
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freezing or seizure of assets or other investigative or provisional
measures, information on convictions and on confiscation and criminal
records, which is already held by:
(a) any designated authority in the context of preventing,
detecting, investigating or prosecuting criminal offences; and
(b) public authorities or private entities in the context of
preventing, detecting, investigating or prosecuting criminal
offences and which is available  to the designated authorities
according to the provisions of any other law applicable to them ;
Cap. 365."serious criminal offences" means the forms of crime listed in
Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2016/794 of the European Parliament and
of the Council of 11 May 2016 on the European Union Agency forLaw Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) and replacing and repealing
Council Decisions 2009/371/JHA, 2009/934/JHA, 2009/935/JHA,2009/936/JHA and 2009/968/JHA, tax evasion, and any other offen ce
under the National Interest (Enabling Powers) Act;
Cap. 373."Unit" means the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit
established in accordance with article 15 of the Prevention of Money
Laundering Act;
Processing of 
information received from 
the Unit by the 
designated authorities.3. The designated authorities may process the financial
information and financial analysis received from the Unit for the
specific purpose of preventing, detecting, investigating or pro secuting
serious criminal offences other than the purposes for which per sonal
data are collected in accordance with Article 4(2) of Directive  (EU)
2016/680.
Requests of 
information by the Unit to the 
designated 
authorities.4. (1) The Unit may request law enforcement information
from the designated authorities where the information is necessary for
the prevention, detection and combating of money laundering,
associate predicate offences and terrorist financing.
(2) The designated authorities shall respond, on a case-by-case
basis, in a timely manner to requests for law enforcement infor mation
made by the Unit.
Exchange of 
information 
with counterpart 
designated authorities. 5. (1) The designated authorities may exchange financial
information or financial analysis obtained from the Unit, upon request
and on a case by case basis, with a designated authority in another
Member State, where the financial information or financial analysis isnecessary for the prevention, detection and combating of money
laundering, associate predicate offences and terrorist financing.
(2) The designated authorities may impose conditions and
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restrictions on the use of exchanged information as they may
determine in order to ensure that the financial information or financial
analysis exchanged is used only for the purpose for which it wa s
sought or provided.
(3) Any dissemination of financial information or financial
analysis obtained by the designated authorities from the FIU of anotherMember State to any other author ity, agency or department or an y use
of the information for purposes o ther than those originally app roved is
subject to the obtaining of prior consent of the FIU providing the
information.
(4) The designated authorities shall apply and make use of
dedicated secure electronic communications ensuring high level of
data security when transmitting requests and responses for exchange of
information.
Records of 
information requests.6. (1) The designated authorities shall maintain records
relating to requests for information.
(2) The records shall contain:
(a) the name and contact details of the organisation and
of the staff member requesting th e information and, if possible ,
of the recipient of the results of the query or search;
(b) the reference to the case in relation to which the
information is requested;
(c) the subject matter of the request; and
(d) any executing measures of such requests.
(3) The records shall be kept for  a period of five (5) years after
their creation and shall be used solely for the purpose of chec king the
lawfulness of the processing of personal data:
Provided that these records shall be made available to the
Unit upon its request.
Statistical data. 7. (1) The designated authorities shall keep the following
statistical data:
(a) number of requests issued by each designated
authority, the follow-up given to the requests, the number of
cases investigated, the number of persons prosecuted and thenumber of persons convicted for serious criminal offences,
where such information is available;
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Ippubblikat mid-Dipartiment tal-Informazzjoni (doi.gov.mt) — Valletta — Published by the Department of Information (doi.gov.mt) — Valletta
Mitbugħ fl-Istamperija tal-Gvern fuq karta FSC — Printed at the Government Printing Press on FSC certified paper
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(b) data measuring the time it takes for an authority to
respond to a request after the receipt of the request issued by  a
designated authority and the time a designated authority takes to
respond to requests;
(c) data measuring the cost of human or IT resources
dedicated to domestic and cross-border requests falling under
these regulations, if available.
(2) The statistical data shall be compiled on an annual basis.
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