Recital 71

(71) The vast majority of FIUs have been granted the power to take urgent action and suspend or withhold consent to a transaction in order to perform the analyses, confirm the suspicion and disseminate the results of the analytical activities to the competent authorities. However, there are certain variations in relation to the duration of the suspension powers across Member States, with an impact not only on the postponement of activities that have a cross-border nature through FIU-to-FIU cooperation, but also on individuals’ fundamental rights. Furthermore, in order to ensure that FIUs have the capacity to promptly restrain criminal funds or assets and prevent their dissipation, also for seizure purposes, FIUs should be granted the power to suspend the use of a bank account or payment account, crypto-asset account or a business relationship in order to analyse the transactions performed through the account or business relationship, confirm the suspicion and disseminate the results of the analysis to the relevant competent authorities. Given that such suspension would have an impact on the right to property, FIUs should be able to suspend transactions, accounts or business relationships for a limited period in order to preserve the funds, carry out the necessary analyses and disseminate the results of the analyses to the competent authorities for the possible adoption of appropriate measures. Given the more significant impact on an affected person’s fundamental rights, the suspension of an account or business relationship should be imposed for a more limited period, which should be set at 5 working days. Member States can define a longer period of suspension where, pursuant to national law, the FIU exercises competences in the area of asset recovery and carries out functions of tracing, seizing, freezing or confiscating criminal assets. In such cases, the preservation of affected persons’ fundamental rights should be guaranteed and FIUs should exercise their functions in accordance with the appropriate national safeguards. FIUs should lift the suspension of the transaction, account or business relationship as soon as such suspension is no longer necessary. Where a longer suspension period is defined, affected persons whose transactions, accounts or business relationships have been suspended should have the possibility to challenge the suspension order before a court.

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Source: EUR-Lex CELLAR · retrieved 2026-09-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.