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Part One. Article 6 51“Option 2 8“[5. States Parties shall adopt appropriate measures to apply instruments thatdetect money-laundering at banking and non-banking financial institutions.]“6. Nothing contained in this article shall affect the principle that the descriptionof the offences to which it refers and of legal defences thereto is reserved to thedomestic law of a State Party and that such offences shall be prosecuted and punishedin conformity with that law.”Third session: 28 April-3 May 1999Notes by the Secretariat1. Delegations based their comments on the text of article 4 of the revised draft conventioncontained in document A/AC.254/4/Rev.2, which was the same as that containedin document A/AC.254/4/Rev.1.Rolling text (A/AC.254/4/Rev.3)“Article 4“Money-laundering“1. Each State Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as maybe necessary to establish as offences under its domestic law, [when committed intentionally]9 [and subject to its constitutional principles and basic concepts of its legalsystem]: 10,118Option 2 was based on a proposal submitted by Mexico (see A/AC.254/L.7).9At the third session of the Ad Hoc Committee, there was extensive discussion on the formulation of paragraph 1,which would require States parties to criminalize certain acts when committed intentionally, and of paragraph 3, which wouldsuggest that States parties might, as an option, criminalize certain acts when committed through negligence. Several delegationsunderlined the need to review those formulations, in particular whether the phrase “when committed intentionally”was needed in paragraph 1 (see, for example, the statement submitted by Spain contained in document A/AC.254/5/Add.5).10Some delegations suggested that paragraph 1 provided an adequate definition of the offence of money-laundering.Other delegations suggested that a definition could be inserted in article 2 bis. Some delegations expressed caution, statingthat, if such a separate definition was provided, it should be in line with paragraph 1 of the article. Some delegations suggestedthat the following definition, provided by Mexico in article 5 of the draft protocol on money-laundering supplementaryto the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (A/AC.254/L.23) could be inserted in article2 bis: “‘Money-laundering’ means any act carried out directly or through an intermediary with a view to the acquisition,disposal, administration, safe keeping, exchange, deposit, guaranteeing, investment, transport, possession, granting or transferof funds, rights or property of any kind, knowing that such funds, rights or property are derived from, or represent theproceeds of, crime, for the purpose of concealing, disguising or preventing the discovery of the illicit origin thereof or ofassisting any person who is involved in the commission of the predicate offence to evade the legal consequences of his orher actions.”11Some delegations suggested that the phrase “and subject to its constitutional principles and basic concepts of itslegal system” should apply to all of paragraph 1, while other delegations suggested that, in line with the 1988 Conventionand the 1990 Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime,the phrase should follow subparagraph (b) and thus apply only to subparagraph (c) and any subsequent subparagraphs.