On January 27, the National Futures Association (NFA) issued a notice to its members indicating that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has authorized it to request suspicious activity reports (SARs), information revealing the existence or non-existence of SARs and supporting documentation related to SARs. The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) requires financial institutions, including futures commission merchants (FCMs) and introducing brokers (IBs), to report detailed information about transactions that appear to be suspicious by filing an SAR with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FCMs and IBs are prohibited from disclosing the existence of an SAR to NFA unless such disclosure is permitted by the CFTC. On January 8, the CFTC submitted a letter to NFA that authorizes it to request SARs and information related to SARs from its members.
More information is available here.
