Navigating 2025: Trends in OFAC and DOJ Enforcement for Digital Assets — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Virtual Currency Regulations: Key Insights for the Payments Industry — Payments Pros – The Payments Law Podcast
The Presumption of Innocence Podcast: Episode 54 - The Flaws of FARA: Feeble Oversight of Billions in Foreign Influence
Episode 352 -- Review of 2024 DOJ and SEC Sanctions Enforcement and Compliance
Unpacking the Fifth Circuit's Landmark Tornado Cash Decision — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
The Justice Insiders Podcast - The Ever-Expanding Net: Corporate Compliance in an Era of Increasing Trade Sanctions and Restrictions
Episode 328 -- Sanctions Enforcement Risks and Redlines
Corruption, Crime and Compliance: Third-Party Risks and Sanctions Compliance
Episode 324 -- Third-Party Risks and Sanctions Compliance
Will Resiliency Carry the Digital Asset Sector Through 2024: Federal Legislative Developments and OFAC Consent Orders — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Corruption, Crime & Compliance: Deep Dive into SCG Plastics’ $20 Million Settlement with OFAC to Resolve Violations of Iran Sanctions Program
Episode 319 -- Deep Dive into SCG Plastics' $20 Million Settlement with OFAC for Violations of the Iran Sanctions Program
Wiley's 10 Key Trade Developments: Evolution of Export Controls
Wiley’s Top 10 Trade Developments: Heightened Sanctions and Export Control Enforcement
Corruption, Crime and Compliance: Trade Compliance Trends and Expectations with Gabrielle Griffith
Episode 308 -- Gabrielle Griffith, Director BPE Global, on Trade Compliance
Corruption, Crime and Compliance: DOJ and OFAC Sanctions Enforcement Review for 2023
Episode 307 -- Sanctions Enforcement Review and Predictions for 2024
Episode 302 -- Matt Stankiewicz on DOJ's Massive Criminal Settlement with Cryptocurrency Exchange Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao
Episode 294 -- Catch Up on OFAC Enforcement: 3M and Emigrant Bank
U.S. Financial Services Firms Announce Digital Asset Initiatives - A major U.S. financial services company and operator of global financial exchanges and clearinghouses recently announced an agreement with the issuer of the...more
Over the past several years, as U.S. regulators have grappled with the increasing use of cryptocurrency across a spectrum of legitimate and illegitimate commerce, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Foreign Assets...more
On 21 March 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) removed Tornado Cash, a virtual currency mixer, from its list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List),...more
Lowenstein Crypto advises leading digital asset and cryptocurrency projects, exchanges, and trading firms. Our practice covers regulatory advice, transactions and structuring advice, investigations, and adversarial matters...more
Executive Order Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, Digital Asset Stockpile - On March 6, President Trump issued an executive order (EO), Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset...more
President Trump’s crypto executive order (the Crypto Executive Order) was a first step in the Trump Administration’s articulation of a policy on promoting the lawful use of blockchain technology. It remains to be seen whether...more
Shortly before Thanksgiving, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) did not have the authority to sanction Tornado Cash, which offers a...more
You've been hit by a ransomware attack, and a cybercriminal group is demanding a cryptocurrency payment in exchange for your data's safe return. Should you pay? Deciding whether to pay a ransom is an internal business...more
On November 26, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) against a decentralized cryptocurrency mixing service (a...more
In a closely watched and complicated case, Van Loon et al. v. Dep’t of the Treasury et al., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) cannot sanction Tornado...more
On November 26, 2024, the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion in Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury that invalidated economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) on...more
Payments Firms Launch Crypto Products, New Crypto Adoption Data Published - According to a recent press release, a well-known U.S. payments and financial technology company announced that it will allow its United States...more
Crypto’s two calling cards, decentralization and anonymity, can lead to abuses, such as money laundering and tax evasion. The U.S. Treasury has long combatted crypto money laundering...more
On the one hand, the year ended where it began. The legislation on stabelecoins and market structure that would provide a regulatory framework for digital assets has still not been enacted into law. And Securities and...more
You are reading the November 2023 Update of the Bass, Berry & Sims Enforcement Roundup, where we bring notable enforcement actions, policy changes, interesting news articles, and a bit of our insight to your inbox. ...more
Editor's Note - The following newsletter provides a roundup summarizing enforcement actions, guidance, rulemakings, and other public statements taken by a federal and/or state financial services regulatory agency,...more
In two prior posts, this blog tracked the ongoing intrigue of how the various branches of the United States government interact with blockchain and cryptocurrency organizations. We discussed the Wyoming law allowing...more
CryptoLink is a compilation of news stories published by outside organizations. Akin aggregates these stories, but the information contained in them does not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of the firm. Akin's...more
In a long-awaited decision involving the cryptocurrency “mixer” Tornado Cash, a U.S. district court on August 17, 2023, upheld the broad authority of the Department of the Treasury’s (Treasury’s) Office of Foreign Assets...more
District Court Upholds Tornado Cash Sanctions, DOJ Charges Founders - On August 17, a Texas federal court found that Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer (which obscures the source of crypto transactions) is an entity that can be...more
The report examines the vulnerabilities in DeFi, including potential gaps in the United States’ Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering regulatory, supervisory, and enforcement regimes for DeFi. We first discuss how Treasury...more
On April 5, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) in the U.S. Department of the Treasury named Genesis Market to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals List (“SDN List”). Genesis Market is...more
It certainly feels like a race between innovation and enforcement these days, with regulators and law enforcement stepping up the cautionary rhetoric and promising broader enforcement aimed at corporate actors....more
The United States Department of the Treasury has continued to signal that it will focus policy, regulatory, and enforcement attention on the financial crime and sanctions risk in the crypto and digital asset ecosystem...more
Executive Summary - The North Korean threat to the crypto ecosystem is the highest form of immediate risk to the crypto-economy driven by a regime that seeks to profit from its misuse to reinforce its regime and fuel all its...more