Have you recently analysed your agreements in accordance with the anti-money laundering law?

Currently, the analysis of agreements must be approached from a comprehensive perspective, particularly as a result of the recent reforms act to provisions on the anti-money laundering framework, specifically the Regulations of the Anti-Money Laundering Law, published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (Diario Oficial de la Federación) on March 27, 2026.

This is how the anti-money laundering regime has been transformed from a formal model to a material, preventive and risk-based one, in which the authority, especially the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) and the Tax Administration Service (SAT), have expanded supervisory powers, verification and sanction, as well as reinforced tools for information analysis and traceability of operations.

Interaction between Articles 17 and 32 of the Anti-Money Laundering Law.

Article 17 lists the regulatory hypotheses that update vulnerable activities and although this analysis is important, it is not limited here, because even when the operation does not formally fit into the assumptions of this article, the contract may be impacted by Article 32, which establishes express restrictions on the use of cash. This reflects that they are autonomous and complementary regulatory regimes.

Under the reform, the normative assumptions in both articles must also consider the real economic moment of the act and the possible accumulation of operations in short periods or their functional linkage.

Relationship with the Monetary Law.

The foregoing should not be considered as a contradiction to Monetary Law, whose Article 2 establishes the unlimited liberatory power of banknotes, since the Anti-Money Laundering Law as a special and subsequent law, establishes specific and justified limitations in matters of crime prevention.

Regulatory implications in agreement structuring.

From this perspective, the structure of contracts can no longer be limited to establishing a payment obligation, it must also:

1. Clearly define how the payment will be made.
2. Guarantee its traceability
3. Incorporate anti-money laundering compliance mechanisms.
4. Consider the risk profile of the parties in accordance with the new regulatory standards.

Also, the Regulation introduces important new requirements for contractual practice such as:

1. Information preservation for up to 10 years.
2. Possibility for the authority to use databases, tax receipts and audits to verify operations, without the need to survey sources.
3. Obligation to have internal or external audits on anti-money laundering matters.