Recent Developments in Anti-Money Laundering - The Consumer Finance Podcast
Investment Management Update – Exit Strategies
On April 24, 2024, President Biden signed into law a sweeping national security legislative package that included the 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act, which includes measures to promote sanctions and export controls...more
The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has been very active in the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) / Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) space, as reflected by a recent series of individual prosecutions and corporate non-prosecution agreements...more
As the world now knows, Binance Holdings Limited, doing business as Binance.com (“Binance” or the “Company”), has entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”)....more
On November 6, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) released a new joint notice concerning...more
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Court”) has issued a detailed and complicated Order in the case Banco San Juan Internacional, Inc. v. Fed. Reserve Bank of New York, denying a...more
Summary of What Has Happened and What Is Yet to Come - On 19 October 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), pursuant to...more
The new Director of FinCEN, Andrea Gacki, addressed several key topics on October 3, 2023 at the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (“ACAMS”) conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Specifically, Director...more
For financial institutions who engage in marijuana-related banking services, the primary compliance challenge remains the disconnect between federal and state law, as it is still illegal to manufacture, distribute, or...more
On April 26, FinCEN announced its first enforcement action against a trust company, in which it assessed a $1.5 million civil money penalty against a South Dakota-chartered trust company for willful violations of the Bank...more
Financial services companies, such as banks, credit unions, lenders, finance companies, loan servicers, broker-dealers, and securities firms, often receive subpoenas from parties in litigation involving their customers,...more
Happy New Year! While the holidays hopefully provided a chance to rest and recharge, things have not slowed down in the world of digital asset enforcement. We see a growing dedication of resources by government law...more
On October 19, 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C., on behalf of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), filed a civil complaint against Larry Dean Harmon (“Harmon”), seeking $60 million in civil penalties...more
Greetings, and thank you for taking a look at our new monthly crypto enforcement newsletter. Our goal is to share five topics each month that we believe are of significance in the world of crypto enforcement—particularly as...more
How effective is the current framework for filing Suspicious Activity Reports, or SARs? The AML Act mandates that federal law enforcement agencies provide statistics to assist Congress, regulators, and financial institutions...more
The SEC continues to focus a portion of its enforcement attention on registrants' obligations with regard to anti-money laundering (AML) compliance and transaction monitoring. In this post, we provide a refresher on the...more
Our quarterly Financial Crime Horizon Scanner for the US summarizes key financial crime related legal and regulatory changes expected over the next 2 years and provides electronic links to key resources. We hope that you...more
Cryptocurrency's reputation for enabling transactions outside of the traditional financial ecosystem has prompted concerns that it may serve as a tool for Russian actors to evade recently promulgated sanctions against the...more
On February 24, 2022, two of three founders of an off-shore cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, the Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange or “BitMEX,” pled guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) by failing to maintain an...more
Last week, the Biden Administration unveiled a sweeping “whole-of-government approach” to combating corruption. Identifying corruption as a “cancer within the body of societies—a disease that eats at the public trust and the...more
Despite the cannabis industry’s explosive growth, many financial institutions have been hesitant to transact with cannabis-related businesses given the ambiguity created by divergent state and federal cannabis laws. The SAFE...more
Case Presages Mandatory BSA Obligations for Antiquities Dealers under the AML Act - In the midst of the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent civil instability, thousands of cultural artifacts were stolen from the National...more
Cryptocurrency, and its most-noted asset Bitcoin, has been breaking into the mainstream press. While most lawyers have heard terms like “blockchain” and probably even know a few people who have been deeply interested in the...more
With the light at the end of the tunnel getting brighter on our pandemic journey, the legal realities are only just beginning. The Department of Justice has prioritized the prosecution of fraud arising from the Paycheck...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has focused on cryptocurrency in the last six months, while consumer interest hits all-time highs. The cryptocurrency market is not unlike the cannabis market from several years...more