News
Planned Beneficial Ownership Rule Would Do ‘Nothing,’ Says Former PSI Official
printDraft U.S. Treasury Department rules on customer due diligence requirements for financial institutions would not prevent criminals from exploiting shell companies, according to Elise Bean, former staff director and chief counsel of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The expected regulation, proposed by the department last year, would grant illicit actors a simple loophole to avoid reporting their control over corporate entities to banks, said Bean, who helped lead the subcommittee's high-profile investigations into anti-money laundering (AML) violations and the misuse of offshore accounts by American tax dodgers. In an interview with ACAMS moneylaundering.com senior reporter Colby Adams, Bean, now interim...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Subscribe
Learn More
Related News
Competing U.S. proposals that would require companies to disclose their beneficial owners have gained unprecedented momentum in recent months, with no signs of a consolidated measure in sight.
The U.S. Treasury Department finalized its long-awaited customer due diligence rule Friday shortly after the introduction by the White House of a bevy of corporate transparency-related measures.
The United States is the one of the least financially transparent nations in the globe, and the most worrisome jurisdiction for corporate secrecy issues, a London-based advocacy group said Monday.
Intergovernmental plans to better identify corporate owners will do little to thwart financial crooks, even at great cost to banks and governments, according to an academic report on offshore financial flows.
U.S. Treasury Department officials are weighing whether to exempt trusts and offer more flexibility on verification requirements in an upcoming proposal that would impose data collection duties on corporate accounts held at banks.
A U.S. Treasury Department proposal to toughen customer due diligence obligations for banks would increase compliance costs while providing only minimal benefit to law enforcement, according to industry comment letters.
Compliance with beneficial ownership standards will be one of the top priorities for Financial Action Task Force examiners during the group's next round of jurisdictional reviews, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday that it was considering imposing customer due diligence currently applied to private banking and correspondent accounts to all accountholders at depository institutions.
Company formation agents would be required to implement anti-money laundering programs to better vet their clients under a broad measure introduced Tuesday by two influential U.S. lawmakers.
The head of a powerful U.S. Senate panel is pushing to include new corporate transparency measures as part of broader financial reform legislation, according to former and current staffers.
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a Senate-approved bill that would pressure foreign financial institutions to disclose their U.S. clients and extend government subpoena powers of financial records.
The exploitation of shell companies by arms traffickers, terrorist financiers and other criminals represents a serious danger to U.S. national security, a high ranking U.S. Treasury Department official said Thursday.
A government watchdog's call for stronger anti-money laundering controls on a federal bank bailout program could result in a "significant step up" in compliance duties for companies involved, say consultants.
U.S. states have been criticized for not requiring corporations to disclose who their beneficial owners are, an issue Congress is tackling with legislation to make company formation agents comply with anti-money laundering regulations.
The U.S. has effective systems to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, but the country has major weaknesses in key areas, said the Financial Action Task Force.