Anti-money-laundering agency imposes $58K penalty on Vancouver real estate broker

A file photo shows Vancouver's skyline before the sun fully sets. (CTV/ Pete Cline)

Canada's anti-money-laundering enforcement agency has imposed a nearly $58,000 penalty on a Vancouver real estate broker for its failure to comply with federal reporting rules.

The $57,915 fine was issued to The Centre Pacific Project Marketing Corp. on May 23, but was announced publicly Thursday.

The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, better known as FINTRAC, imposed the penalty on Centre Pacific for six violations of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and its associated regulations.

The broker's violations, according to FINTRAC, were:

• Failure to ensure that an appointed person be responsible for implementing a compliance program;
• Failure to develop and apply sufficient compliance policies and procedures for its regulatory obligations related to suspicious transaction reporting, terrorist property reporting, record keeping, verifying client identity, third party determination, as well as ongoing monitoring of all business relationships;
• Failure to assess and document the money laundering or terrorist activity financing risks of its geographic locations, its new technologies, products and delivery channels, and clients and business relationships;
• Failure to develop and maintain a written ongoing compliance training program;
• Failure to institute and document the prescribed review of its policies and procedures, risk assessment and training program;
• And failure to keep prescribed records in respect of client information records

FINTRAC's administrative penalties are explicitly intended to encourage compliance and to be "non-punitive," according to the agency's website. 

The agency says it typically only issues such penalties after other efforts to achieve compliance have failed.

While entities subject to FINTRAC penalties have the option to request a review from the agency's director and CEO – and to appeal any resulting decision in federal court – the FINTRAC website indicates that Centre Pacific's case is considered closed.

The agency says it issued six notices of violation totalling just over $1.1 million in its 2022-23 year. FINTRAC says it has imposed more than 125 administrative penalties since it received the authority to do so in 2008.