ITALY Trends and Developments Contributed by: Francesco Isolabella, Luigi Isolabella and Enrico Maria Canzi, Studio Isolabella
Reference may be made, for example, to specific rules, procedures and protocols – provided for by the organisational model or, more generally, by corporate compliance – concerning: • Procedures for the proper identification of custom - ers (KYC) as a safeguard against the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing offences, where applicable in accordance with sector-specific regulations (for example, Legislative Decree No. 231/2007 for financial intermediaries). • Procedures for selecting and qualifying suppliers in the context of proper supply-chain manage - ment, requiring the adoption and implementation of rigorous procedures for both supplier qualification and supplier selection, as well as corresponding contractual clauses allowing termination of the contract if the counterparty is included on a sanc - tions list. In other words, more structured companies with an effective culture of compliance may already have inter - nal rules which, if properly implemented and applied to the offences introduced by Legislative Decree No. 211/2025, could provide a defence against the risk of violating sanctions measures. d) Focus: the relevance of the issue for the financial sector and the UIF communication of May 2026 Confirmation of the above can be found in the recent communication addressed by the UIF (the Financial Intelligence Unit for Italy, an autonomous and inde - pendent authority established within the Bank of Italy and tasked with receiving and analysing a financial information concerning possible cases of money laun - dering and terrorist financing submitted by obliged entities) to financial intermediaries on 7 May 2026, concerning the “prevention of unlawful activities con - nected with the violation of European Union restrictive measures”. In that communication, the UIF expressly states that the new offences introduced by Legislative Decree No. 211/2025 constitute criminal activity giving rise to the obligation to file suspicious transaction reports (STRs) for money laundering purposes under Article 35 of Legislative Decree No. 231/2007. Therefore, the
authority that is the natural recipient of anti-money laundering reports considered it necessary to draw the attention of financial operators to a point that is as simple as it is important: violations of European sanc - tions constitute criminal offences and may therefore be the predicate for money laundering activity which, pursuant to Legislative Decree No. 231/2007 and, in particular, Article 35 thereof, must be reported as a suspicious transaction. Indeed, while noting that the reporting obligation is separate and autonomous from the communication duties concerning restrictive measures and always requires an appropriately assessed suspicion, the UIF nevertheless confirms the close link between anti-money laundering rules and the identification of potential violations of European Union sanctions measures. It also provides examples of indicators and characteristics that should be considered suspicious of money laundering resulting from a violation of EU sanctions – in other words, money laundering based on a violation of the regime introduced by Legislative Decree No. 211/2025. In its communication of 7 May 2026, the UIF remind - ed economic operators that the recently introduced offences under Articles 275-bis to 275-decies of the Italian Criminal Code may constitute predicate offenc - es for the offence of money laundering. In this regard, the UIF further notes that, when assess - ing suspicion, the following circumstances are rel - evant: matches against names on public lists, the involvement of connected persons and the objective features of the activity identified. A mere coincidence of names is not sufficient if the recipient can rule out, with reasonable certainty, that the person concerned is the same as the person indi - cated on the lists. By way of example, the UIF then identifies several risk scenarios: • Opaque transnational corporate chains that obscure the ownership of assets attributable to sanctioned persons, especially in the real estate sector.
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