On December 15, 2022, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) of the Department of the Treasury announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the “Access Rule NPRM”)[1] to implement the requirements of the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”) with respect to access to beneficial ownership information (“BOI”) reported to FinCEN under the CTA.[2] The Access Rule NPRM would implement the CTA’s provisions on who may access BOI held by FinCEN, the circumstances under which access may be granted, and the conditions regarding use, security, and oversight of BOI. Separately, it proposes an approach to the use of “FinCEN identifiers” for corporate entities that FinCEN’s final BOI Reporting Rule left unaddressed.Continue Reading FinCEN Proposes Rule Regarding Access to Beneficial Ownership Information under the Corporate Transparency Act

On February 18, 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced a $507,375 settlement with BitPay, Inc. (BitPay), a payment processor for merchants accepting digital currency as payment for goods and services, for 2,102 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs between 2013 and 2018.[1] The settlement highlights that financial service providers facilitating digital currency transactions must not only establish sanctions compliance programs to screen their own customers but also must monitor third-party non-customer transaction information.
Continue Reading OFAC Settles with Digital Currency Payment Processor for Sanctions Violations

As part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 (the “NDAA”), Congress has passed the most significant U.S. anti-money laundering (“AML”) legislation since the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, the “Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020” (“AMLA 2020”).

Although President Trump has threatened to veto the NDAA, the majorities supporting the legislation would be sufficient