Calling out the Anti‐Money Launderers through CSR Regulation

Recent regulation and research highlights a new focus in money laundering, the corporate clients to the financial institutions. There are several ways to try to include these clients in the combat against money laundering or even just trying to identify the corporate clients types, so financial institutions can figure out, who are the criminals in the pool of corporate clients. This article examines the regulatory restrictions and the present regulatory framework applicable to corporate clients, to see how they are incentivized by regulation to withhold from laundering money or even assisting in the prevention. It is argued that the present regulatory framework is insufficient. Based on similarities between anti‐money laundering and CSR strategies, this article analyzes the possibility for including money laundering in the CSR Directive as a regulatory incentive for corporate clients to engage in the combatting of money laundering. The result of this article is that it is possible to include anti‐money laundering as an aim in the CSR directive and it should give an incentive to engage corporate clients in the fight against money laundering. However, some supervision has to be included so companies need to proof their effort in anti‐money laundering, if the regulation is to be effective.