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Yuthana Sivaraks

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Yuthana Sivaraks joined Baker & McKenzie in 1995 and became a partner in 2004. Prior to working with the Firm, he served as a judge advocate in the Royal Thai Navy. He is currently a member of various practice groups in the Bangkok office, including those for IT/Communications, Intellectual Property and Corporate & Commercial. In addition to practicing law, Mr. Sivaraks is an active visiting lecturer on IT, telecommunications, intellectual property and trade competition law for a number of Thai universities and institutions.

In this article, we will discuss the obligations of business operators to report transactions that meet the monetary thresholds set by the Anti-Money Laundering Office or where there are any suspicious transactions as stipulated under the Act.

In our previous article (link), we pointed out that, in addition to businesses in the financial sector, certain other businesses also have obligations under the Money Laundering Control Act, B.E. 2542 (1999).

In our previous newsletters, we explored the first two key legal obligations of non-financial businesses under the Money Laundering Control Act, B.E. 2542 (1999): reporting obligations and know-your-customer (KYC) and customer due diligence (CDD) procedures. In this article we will discuss the third and fourth key legal obligations: implementing internal policies and procedures to address the risk of money laundering, and coordinating with the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) to provide training for personnel.

This episode goes over the final four fundamental elements of the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s guidelines. These elements are: personnel should have accurate books and accounting records, human resource management policies complementary to anti-bribery measures, companies should have communication mechanisms that encourage the reporting of the suspicion of bribery (whistleblowing), and companies need to review and evaluate anti-bribery prevention measures and their effectiveness.

This episode goes over the first two fundamental elements of the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s guidelines. The first guidance is where companies’ internal control measures should be strong, visible policies and supported by top-level management to prevent bribery. The second guidance is that companies should conduct risk assessments to effectively identify and evaluate exposure to bribery to government officials.

In our previous article in the healthcare transaction series, we highlighted the need to review a target’s supply chain as one of the key areas and issues that one should pay attention to when carrying out a due diligence investigation on a healthcare & life sciences (HLS) target. This exercise in revisiting one’s supply chain in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and emerging industry trends, including (among others) digital transformation, will ensure that the company’s supply chain is resilient, compliant, and ready to meet the challenges and opportunities in the HLS industry.

In our previous article (link), we discussed the benefits for a company that has appropriate internal control measures. For the second article of the series, we will discuss the first fundamental element under the NACC’s guidelines, which is “the companies’ internal control measures should be strong, visible policies and supported by top-level management to prevent bribery.”

Under the Organic Act on Counter-Corruption, B.E. 2561 (2018), companies operating in Thailand must put in place “appropriate internal control measures” that comply with the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s (NACC) guidelines. Failure to do so carries a penalty of a fine from one to two times the value of the damage caused, or benefits gained, as a result of the violation.