The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (?FinCEN?) announced on October 30th that it has withdrawn its proposed anti-money laundering rules for certain unregistered investment companies (including many hedge funds), investment advisers, and commodity trading advisors (collectively, the ?Rules?).

FinCEN proposed the Rules in 2002 and 2003 pursuant to the Banking Secrecy Act (?BSA?). The BSA requires certain financial institutions to establish anti-money laundering programs.

Unless and until FinCEN publishes a new anti-money laundering proposal, it will not proceed with mandating anti-money laundering compliance requirements under the BSA for unregistered investment companies, commodity trading advisors or investment advisers. FinCEN will allow industry comment on future proposals and will provide access to pending rules on its website.

See full alert for more information.