LEGAL
News & Views
Partnering with law enforcement to leverage investigative resources – ACAMS 2016 panel
Partnerships between the private and public sector are often touted as the answer to confront illicit finance. But how do professionals from two distinctly different types of organizations work together if they don’t “speak the same language”? Solving this issue was the focus of a session at ACAMS 2016, “Partnering with Law Enforcement to Leverage Investigative Resources.”
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Supporting effective compliance programs: The oversight roles of the board audit and risk committees in regulatory compliance (Part 1)
To be effective, a financial organization’s compliance program must be an integral part of strategic planning, ongoing operations, and daily decision making. To support the audit and risk committees’ oversight roles, the organization’s risk and compliance officers should provide regular, succinct communication. In its oversight role, the applicable committee should ask the necessary questions to assure itself of the program’s effectiveness.
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What you need to know about the FinCEN CDD requirements
FinCEN has adopted new AML regulations that impose additional customer due diligence requirements on certain financial institutions (the “CDD Rule”). These new regulations, originally proposed about two years ago, were announced on the heels of the unprecedented leak of confidential files of a Panamanian law firm. The White House described the CDD Rule as another arrow in the government’s quiver to combat “corrupt officials, tax cheats, and other criminals” who have used “anonymous shell companies” to, among other things, “hide assets, engage in money laundering, or avoid taxes in their home countries.
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10 things to consider when whistleblowing under the Dodd Frank Act
Scandals such as Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, and the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme have cast the whistleblower as a type of David – a principled warrior defending the values of justice – against Goliath, the arrogant, proud behemoth. Yet, as with most fables of an apocryphal nature, the reality is a more complex intrigue – and there are many cases of senior executives turning a blind eye or choosing to take their leave of the denigrated company before any such indiscretions are brought to light.
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With MAN’s escape from “record fines,” EU Commission provides strong incentive for whistleblowers
With the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continuing to pay whistleblower awards since its eponymous program began five years ago, there are seemingly greater incentives than ever for insiders to report wrongdoing within their organizations. This also holds true abroad, specifically in the EU, where, in July, regulators levied a record €2.9 billion fine ($3.2 billion) against Europe’s biggest truck makers for engaging in a 14-year-long illegal cartel.
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Federal court: Bitcoin is “money.” What does it mean?
On September 19, Judge Alison J. Nathan of the Southern District of New York ruled that bitcoin is money under federal law – or at least the federal statute in question. The decision is the latest federal ruling to deem the legal status of the digital currency as “money,” and this continuing trend likely has substantial consequences for the future of bitcoin and any other similar currencies.
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