Luxembourg life assurance and wealth management company OneLife has been fined 580,000 euro by the country’s insurance supervisor Commissariat aux Assurances (CAA) after “certain failures” were detected in the firm’s anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML-CFT) systems.
The problems were found during an CAA audit conducted between December 2021 and April 2022. Following the audit, CAA issued an administrative fine against the company on 16 May, OneLife said in a statement dated 21 July. CAA said the inspection mainly focused on the exposure to the risk of tax non-compliance by its clients.
OneLife at the end of 2022 held some 8.15 billion euro in investments for the benefit of its life insurance policy-holders who bear the investment risk, down from 8.49 billion end 2021. Since 2019, the firm is owned by Paris-based mutual insurance company Apicil.
CAA said it found “significant deficiencies” at OneLife concerning life insurance policies taken out before 2017 and still in effect at the time when new primary tax offences were added to money laundering, as provided by the law of December 23, 2016, implementing a 2017 tax reform in Luxembourg.
‘Inadequate risk assessment’
“The CAA particularly identified inadequate risk assessment and enhanced due diligence measures, failures in reviewing and updating documents, data, and information, as well as delays in submitting suspicious activity reports to the Financial Intelligence Unit,” the supervisor said.
OneLife said the fine was “in no way related” to any actual money laundering or terrorism financing activities. “Compliance is, and has always been, at the very heart of the company’s efforts in order to maximise security among all players,” OneLife said. “Regular controls, personnel awareness and partner proximity are the guarantees of security for the end client, for insurance intermediaries and for OneLife as an insurance company.”
‘Significant efforts’
CAA said the company’s “prompt response” in implementing corrective actions was take into consideration when determining the penalty. “It should be noted that the deficiencies identified and the sanction imposed are based on facts observed at the time of the inspection. The company has since initiated remediation actions to address all the identified deficiencies. In particular, significant efforts have been made to verify and update documents, data, and information for policies presenting a high AML/CFT risk, notably concerning clients’ tax compliance.”
