Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands have been referred to the European Court of Justice after they failed to fully implement EU-wide anti-money laundering rules.

In a press statement, the European Commission said it had referred the three countries to the ECJ due to their incomplete transposition of the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive.

Austria is accused of failing to transpose sections related to betting and gambling legislation, Belgium is alleged to fall short when it comes to mechanisms under which financial intelligence units exchange information and documents and the Netherlands is charged with not applying rules related to providing information about the beneficial owners of corporate and other legal entities.

“We have robust EU rules in place but they must be applied consistently and efficiently. We will make sure that everyone in both private and public sectors applies the rules rigorously,” Commission executive vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said.

Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands are the latest in a list of EU member states to have fallen foul of the European Commission in their implementation of the stringent anti-money laundering rules.

Although all member states were meant to have implemented the rules by June 2017, implementation remains patchy.

The European Commission had referred Ireland, Greece, Romania and Luxembourg to the ECJ for similar failings in 2018 and has also sent letters of warning to Denmark and Estonia.

Since then, the EU has introduced even more stringent anti-money laundering regulations, the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive. Member states ostensibly had until January of this year to transpose that directive into national laws.