U.S. rules against illicit finance are, for the most part, sophisticated and comprehensive, but minimal regulation of attorneys, accountants, company formation agents and other nonbank firms constitutes a significant, longstanding loophole that money launderers and terrorist financiers can exploit. Those weaknesses and others noted Thursday by the Financial Action Task Force are rendered more substantial by the dominant place the United States holds in the global financial system, and risk undermining several recent upgrades to the nation's anti-money laundering regime, the intergovernmental group said in its first mutual evaluation of the country in 10 years. FATF assigned the United States...
Swiss banks often file suspicious activity reports only as a reaction to "external information," while penalties Swiss regulators levy in response to serious compliance violations fall short of deterring future misconduct, according to the Financial Action Task Force.
Scant, uneven efforts by U.S. state authorities to identify the individuals who own or control companies formed within their jurisdictions hobble federal efforts to investigate and prosecute money launderers, an intergovernmental group recently concluded.
An intergovernmental group tasked with monitoring how effectively nations fight money laundering and terrorist financing is set to criticize the United States for failing to address several long-term deficiencies in the country's laws and regulations.
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.