Israel: Money Laundering: At the Crossroads

The lucrative enterprise of money laundering, the threat it poses to the integrity and stability of financial sectors as well as to the democratic societies themselves, and the means to counteract it, all have long been the object of academic debate across the globe. However, interested parties in Israel, such as law enforcement agencies, banks and legal scholars, have not played a vociferous role in this debate, and Parliament for its part has refrained so far from introducing anti-money-laundering legislation. Recently a Bill entitled ‘Prohibition of Money Laundering’ (‘the Bill’) has been introduced to the Israeli Parliament. The Bill has passed first reading, and it is cur-rently being debated in the committee stage before being brought to second and third readings. It is not unlikely that the Bill will crystallise into legislation in the near future. The proposed legislation bears far-reaching legal, economic and policy implications. It is thus surprising that it has not sparked off an extensive debate in the legal literature. This paper will, hopefully, aid in stimulating such a debate.