Anti-money laundering law: a new legal regime to combat financial crime in Malaysia?

Purpose - Before the enactment of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 (AMLATFA), the fight against financial crime can be found in several statutes such as the Penal Code, Anti-Corruption Act 1997 and Companies Act 1965. It is generally accepted that by freezing and forfeiting the proceeds of the crime, it would give significant impact on the fight against financial crime. However, under these legislations, there were few shortcomings of the procedures on how the proceeds of the crime could be seized and forfeited. As such, the enactment of the AMLATFA is considered timely to overcome these problems. This paper aims to examine how the AMLATFA could be utilized to combat financial crime in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach - This paper mainly relies on statutes as its primary sources of information. As such, the relevant provisions under the Malaysian anti-money laundering laws that relate to measures for freezing, seizure and forfeiture of proceeds of the crime will be identified and analyzed. Findings - The AMLATFA provides innovative tools for the law enforcement officials to follow the money trail, which will eventually lead to those who committed the financial crime. It also provides authorities with more powerful seizure and forfeiture measures. This is seen as a new law enforcement strategy to combat financial crime. It is believed that this approach is more effective than the traditional approach, which only punished the individual criminal but failed to diminish the criminal operations. However, it is vitally important to ensure that the effectiveness of the regime must not jeopardize the innocent third parties who could lose their money or any other proprietary interest due to the invocation of the forfeiture order. Originality/value - This paper analyzes the new legal regime under the Malaysian anti-money laundering law that can be invoked to combat financial crimes activities. This paper would provide some guidelines into this particular area for legal enforcement authorities, academics, legal practitioners and policy makers, not only in Malaysia but also elsewhere.