Ethics Training Under Georgian Law: What Is Actually Mandatory
Georgia has no standalone statute devoted to corporate ethics training. The mandatory core of staff training is created by the Georgian law on the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Sub-paragraph "g" of the second paragraph of Article 29 of that law makes a continuing staff training program a mandatory component of the internal instruction, and its purpose is to deliver to employees information about the requirements of the law, the relevant subordinate normative acts and the internal instruction itself.
The code-of-conduct training and compliance-academy models familiar from United States corporate practice are not Georgian law and cannot carry a Georgian page: in Georgia, training is governed by Articles 29, 25 and 28 of the anti-money-laundering law.
Who Approves the Program and Who Answers for Its Effectiveness
The continuing training program is part of the internal instruction. The internal instruction is approved by the governing body of the accountable person or by a person holding leadership authority, which means a training program is a governance-level decision rather than the initiative of an individual manager. Under Article 29, the internal instruction must define, among other matters:
- the rights and duties of the head of the responsible person or structural unit and of its staff;
- staff selection rules for hiring persons of high qualification and reputation;
- the continuing staff training program;
- an independent audit function for checking the system’s effectiveness.
Under the same article, the position of the responsible person must correspond to the top hierarchical, management level. That person must be able to obtain, in due time, the information needed for their functions and must decide independently on submitting a report to the Service. Responsibility for effectiveness rests with a governing-body member or leadership-authority holder designated by the accountable person.
What the Training Must Cover: Suspicious Transactions and Reporting
The substantive core of the training is defined by Article 25. The accountable person must submit to the Service a report on a suspicious transaction or on an attempt to prepare, conclude or execute such a transaction. For an employee this means that the reporting duty arises not only for a concluded transaction but also for an attempt to prepare or execute one, and recognizing that moment is precisely the knowledge the training must transfer to front-line staff.
The law further contemplates that subordinate normative acts of the head of the Service may define additional types of transactions that are reportable as such, determined on the basis of information from international organizations or available to the Service. Upon request, the accountable person must submit any information obtained about a transaction or its participants, including confidential information.