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Priorities Echo Prior Alerts and Enforcement Actions

The SEC’s Division of Examinations (the “Division”) released on October 16 a report on its “Examination Priorities” (the “Report”) for fiscal year 2024.  This release occurred earlier than in prior years, which the Report’s prefatory message characterizes as an example of the Division’s “intention to provide more transparency” and “to move forward together with investors and industry to promote compliance.”

The Report

The Report highlights four major areas of focus for the Division’s examinations in the coming year, which it terms “risk areas impacting various market participants”:

  1. Anti-money laundering (“AML”);
  2. Information security and “operational resilience”;
  3. Crypto and emerging financial technologies (“fintech”); and
  4. Regulation systems compliance and integrity (“SCI”).

As to AML, the Report first rehearses the requirement of the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) for broker-dealers: namely, that they establish AML programs tailored to their unique risk profile – their location, size, customer base, menu of products and services, and method of delivery of those products and services. The Report further notes that such AML programs must be reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the BSA and related regulations, must undergo independent testing of their viability, and must include customer due diligence procedures and ongoing transaction monitoring – including, where appropriate, filing of Suspicious Activity Reports (“SARs”) with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”).  Although the Report also references “certain registered investment companies,” investment advisers as a group are not (yet) subject to the BSA.…

Continue Reading  SEC Exam Priorities Target AML

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 Gacki addressed the issues of beneficial ownership under the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”); the real estate industry; investment advisers; fentanyl trafficking; and whistleblowers…

Strategy Includes Professionals Not Yet Covered by BSA

On May 13, 2022, the U.S. Treasury (“Treasury”) released its 2022 Strategy for Combatting Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing (“2022 Strategy”).  The proposed 2022 Strategy, prepared pursuant to Sections 261 and 262 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), outlines four goals to address the key risks identified by the 2022 National Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Proliferation Financing Risk Assessments:

  • Increasing transparency and closing legal and regulatory gaps in the U.S. Anti-Money Laundering / Combating the Financing of Terrorism (“AML/CFT”) framework exploited by bad actors;
  • Making the AML/CFT regulatory framework for financial institutions more effective and efficient;
  • Enhancing operational effectiveness in combating illicit finance; and
  • Utilizing technological innovation to combat illicit finance risks.

The 2022 Strategy is incredibly broad, identifying sixteen threats and vulnerabilities to the AML/CFT system as top priorities, and providing fourteen separate supporting actions necessary to achieve Treasury’s four goals outlined above.  This post summarizes the priorities outlined in the 2022 Strategy, and details the specific supporting action targeting financial intermediaries and gatekeepers not presently covered by the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”), such as investment advisors, lawyers and accountants. …

Continue Reading  U.S. Treasury Releases 2022 Strategy for Combatting Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing

On April 28, 2022, the Acting Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), Himamauli Das (“Das”), appeared before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services to provide an update on FinCEN’s implementation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (“AML Act”), including the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”).  You can find his prepared statement here.

In his opening remarks, Das walked through FinCEN’s activities for the year, and applauded the AML Act for putting FinCEN in a position to address today’s challenges, such as illicit use of digital assets, corruption, and kleptocrats hiding their ill-gotten gains in the U.S. financial system.  The speech focused on financial sanctions on Russia, FinCEN’s continued efforts to fight corruption, and effective AML programs.   Das also indicated that FinCEN is examining whether to issue proposed AML regulations for investment advisers – an effort that stalled in 2015.
Continue Reading  FinCEN Acting Director Das Focuses on Corruption and Transparency During U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Testimony

Strategy Reflects Coordinated Focus on Transparency and “Gatekeeper” Responsibilities

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 ability of governments to deliver for their citizens”—the United States Strategy on Countering Corruption (the “Plan”) articulates a global vision for rooting out this national security threat.  The first-of-its-kind approach focuses on responding to corruption’s transnational dimensions, with a specific emphasis on reducing “the ability of corrupt actors to use the U.S. and international financial systems to hide assets and launder proceeds of corrupt acts.”  Although the Plan is grounded in “five-mutually reinforcing pillars,” pillars two and three merit a closer look from this blog’s readers.  They serve as an important recap of the various steps the Administration has taken to combat illicit finance and its strategy for increased enforcement using both the new and existing tools at its disposal.  Further, the Plan implicates many pressing Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (“BSA/AML”) issues on which we repeatedly blog, as we will discuss.
Continue Reading  White House Releases Sweeping U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption

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