Problem

The guarantees of ARMA’s independence and institutional capacity need to be significantly strengthened. The established procedure for the competitive selection of the Head of ARMA does not ensure proper impartiality and merit-based selection, and the procedure for forming the selection committee contains risks of being recognized as being in contravention of the Constitution of Ukraine. The list of grounds for dismissal of the Head of ARMA is too broad and does not guarantee his independence from undue interference in his activities. One of the mechanisms of control over the agency's activities – an external independent performance evaluation – has never been conducted.
Despite some progress in eliminating contradictions, gaps and inconsistencies in the legislation on the management of seized assets transferred to ARMA, flaws still remain and are significant. This gives rise to risks of abuse during the process of determining the manager of seized assets, as well as control by ARMA over the effectiveness of management of such property. The Unified State Register of Assets Seized in Criminal Proceedings has not yet been put into permanent (commercial) operation, which does not give one confidence in the completeness of the information contained therein, the protection of information, etc.
Cooperation and coordination of efforts among ARMA, the State Financial Monitoring Service, pretrial investigation authorities and the prosecutorial authorities are not systemic and real-time in their nature, which slows down the identification, tracing and securing of assets that may serve as evidence or be subject to confiscation/special confiscation to prevent their concealment. In addition, the legislation does not provide for effective pre-seizure planning mechanisms for assets that will be transferred to ARMA, which reduces the effectiveness of measures towards their subsequent preservation.
There is potential for strengthening ARMA’s international cooperation and data exchange, in particular within the framework of Europol.
Despite the significant progress made by Ukraine in implementing the FATF recommendations, which is recognized in the MONEYVAL assessment reports, there are still recommendations that have been only partly implemented.
A significant challenge for the national competent authorities is the lack of a Unified Register of Accounts of Individuals and Legal Entities and Individual Bank Safe Deposit Boxes in accordance with European standards and best practices. This complicates the prompt identification of assets and conduct of financial investigations. The digitalization of financial monitoring information exchange processes has begun and should be continued. Preventing and combating money laundering will be more effective through the systemic implementation of measures identified in the national risk assessment.