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Lawmakers Targeted “Gatekeeper” Professions Following the Pandora Papers Leak

Motivated by revelations contained in the recently-released Pandora Papers, on October 6, 2021, four U.S. Representatives – Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Steve Cohen (D-TN), and Joe Wilson (R-SC) – introduced House Resolution 5525, named the Establishing New Authorities for Business Laundering and Enabling Risks to Security (“Enablers”) Act.  Generally, the Pandora Papers are an 11.9 million document stockpile published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (“ICIJ”) that revealed the offshore accounts of dozens of world leaders and more than one hundred billionaires, celebrities, and business leaders.  Analysis of the leaks unveiled how the wealthy allegedly used offshore accounts, hidden trusts, and shell companies to hide trillions of dollars, evade tax collectors, and launder money.

The Enablers Act targets the so-called “middlemen” in the United States who allegedly assist with those bad acts.  In a press release, Representative Wilson stated bluntly who he believed to be the “U.S. enablers of kleptocracy”: “unscrupulous lawyers, accountants, and others” that allegedly fail to conduct adequate due diligence in international transactions.

The Act, if passed, would amend the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) to require the Treasury Department to promulgate due diligence requirements for the “middlemen,” which include investment advisors, art dealers, attorneys involved in financial activity, accountants, third-party payment providers, and others.

The Act is nascent proposed legislation that is still subject to refinement as it winds its way through the House Financial Services Committee.  Suffice to say, however, there are some initial questions about the bill’s scope and function that give us pause.  The details are catalogued below.…
Continue Reading The ENABLERS Act Seeks to Impose BSA/AML Requirements on an Array of “Middlemen” Professionals

Bottom Line: Biden Administration May Revive FinCEN’s Proposed Rule For Investment Advisers

Unlike broker-dealers, investment advisers are not currently required to maintain anti-money laundering (“AML”)/counter-terrorist financing (“CTF”) compliance programs under the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”), or file Suspicious Activity Reports (“SARs”).  In 2015, during President Obama’s second term, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) proposed exactly such a rule for certain investment advisers.  Although FinCEN then never moved forward, the stars may be aligning for the implementation of a similar rule in the new Biden Administration.

Industry watchdog groups will push for this.  For example, after Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, the independent Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency Coalition wrote a memorandum, asking him to “[f]inalize the proposed Obama-era rule requiring investment advisers to establish AML programs.”  Action on this front also would be generally consistent with the 2020 Examination Priorities issued by the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), which stated that the OCIE will prioritize examining broker-dealers “for compliance with their AML obligations in order to assess, among other things, whether firms have established appropriate customer identification programs and whether they are satisfying their SAR filing obligations, conducting due diligence on customers, complying with beneficial ownership requirements, and conducting robust and timely independent tests of their AML programs.”  Moreover, the FBI’s concern over money laundering through private equity and hedge funds may increase the likelihood of the administration reviving some version of the 2015 proposed rule.  A leaked FBI Intelligence Bulletin from May 2020 stated that “threat actors[, or money launderers,] likely use the private placement of funds, including investments offered by hedge funds and private equity firms, to launder money, circumventing traditional” AML protections in place at other financial institutions already subject to such regulations.  According to its Intelligence Bulletin, the FBI made this assessment in “high confidence.”…
Continue Reading Investment Advisers May Be Subject to AML Regulations Under Revival of Proposed Rule

FBI Highlights Feared AML Deficiencies in Combating Private Equity Money Laundering

Courtesy of a leaked internal Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) document, it’s now no secret that the FBI suspects that many investment vehicles, such as private equity firms and hedge funds, are widely utilized for money laundering. The FBI apparently compiled a January 2019 report titled “Financial Crime Threat Actors Very Likely Laundering Illicit Proceeds Through Fraudulent Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms to Obfuscate Illicit Proceeds.” Now, a recently leaked May 1, 2020 internal FBI report similarly titled “Threat Actors Likely Use Private Investment Funds to Launder Money, Circumventing Regulatory Tripwires” (the “Report”) purports to supplement the January 2019 report “by providing recent reporting of hedge funds and private equity firms used to launder illicit proceeds, and expands the threat context beyond financial threat actors to include foreign adversaries.”

The Report does more than simply identify the financial threat posed by this type of money laundering; it uses some real-world examples to explain the process by which criminals are perceived to be infiltrating the global financial system using hedge funds and private equity firms, and how the current anti-money laundering (“AML”) regulatory regime is ill-equipped to stop them. It’s safe to say the FBI certainly did not intend for this play-by-play money laundering “how to” guide to go public. Investment advisors and firms should consider whether this leaked Report might add at least some momentum to the otherwise moribund (and controversial) effort by FinCEN in 2015 to propose regulations that would have made investment advisors subject to the requirement to create and maintain full AML programs under the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”).…
Continue Reading Leaked FBI Report Reveals Private Equity Under Enhanced Money Laundering Scrutiny