Adverse media screening — what counts as a match and what does not?

Question

Accepted Answer

Adverse media (sometimes called negative news) screening counts when reputable reporting links a named individual or entity to one of the OpenSanctions adverse-media topic categories: financial crime (fraud, money laundering, embezzlement), corruption (bribery, public-office abuse), serious organised crime (drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms), corporate disqualification, debarment from public procurement, terror or war-related activity, or wanted-by-law-enforcement status. The reporting must be from an identifiable journalistic source — a national or regional newspaper, a regulator notice, a court reporter, a recognised investigative outlet — not anonymous social-media posts or unsourced aggregator pages.

What does NOT count as a match: tabloid speculation without a substantive source; anonymous online posts; historic minor offences (decade-old single-incident reporting where no follow-up exists); coverage of someone with the same name as the customer where the article is clearly about a different person; opinion-column commentary that does not allege specific conduct. The Letting Sector AML Guidance 2025 explicitly warns against treating any name match as automatic enhanced-due-diligence — the regulator expects firms to apply judgement on relevance, recency, and source quality before escalating.

The Stratum adverse-media screen uses OpenSanctions's curated adverse-media catalogue (CC-BY-NC) which already filters to substantive journalistic source. The match payload includes severity (HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW), topic categorisation, source URL, mention count, and first-seen / last-seen dates so the firm's compliance officer can review for relevance before deciding on enhanced due diligence. Cross-reference with PEP screening surfaces where adverse media on a politically-exposed individual elevates the risk tier automatically.

Adverse media screening — what counts as a match and what does not?

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