Tweet Largest civil asset recovery case in US of this kind On July 20, 2016, the US Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture case in California to recover assets of more than $1 billion in alleged proceeds of crime resulting from fraud allegedly committed by individuals associated with the Malaysian government’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad […]
Tweet More scrutiny in US for real estate The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced that it is expanding its program to identify persons who may be hiding assets in residential properties in the US. The expansion adds additional cities to what are called the area for Geographic Targeting Orders (GTO). Title insurance agents in GTO […]
Tweet Right to hack any computer anywhere for serious criminality with underlying court order In a case that seemed to be quite sweeping, the US government has won an appeal to use evidence in a criminal proceeding derived from hacking into personal computers, regardless of where situated (a home, a corporation, a cafe, an airport) […]
Tweet The RCMP has charged a former head of a Crown corporation, Michel Fournier, and his wife, Judith Fournier, both resident in Victoria, with money laundering in connection with alleged corruption from kickbacks they allegedly received tied to a $127 million contract to renovate the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Fournier had a secret bank account in […]
Tweet The Financial Conduct Authority released an interesting soft study on the incidents of derisking affecting companies in the UK and pursuant to the study, MSB, charities and FinTechs are the three business client groups whose bank accounts are most frequently closed because they are too risky for the bank (a practice known as derisking). […]
Tweet Financial regulators balance innovation and protection Financial regulators serve two important functions for the financial system. 1. They support growth and innovation where it could improve access to finance, or the delivery of financial services or grow the economy. 2. At the same time,  they  protect consumers and society at large by supervising the financial […]
Tweet Panama Papers Driven Changes The US Treasury has announced several amendments, and proposed legislative amendments, to its anti-money laundering (“AML“) legislation in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal to tackle the disclosure of what is called “beneficial ownership.” Beneficial ownership means the beneficial, as opposed to the legal, owner of shares of a […]
Tweet Beneficial ownership, shell companies, shelf companies and numbered companies – What’s the Difference? Since the Panama Papers, there seems to be an increasing interest in the concepts of beneficial ownership, numbered companies, shell companies and shelf companies and people often use some of these terms interchangeably but they are not the same things. 1. […]
Tweet Financial inclusion continues to be an important part of the dialogue on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing law, because the latter results in a greater number of people being de-risked out of financial services or denied banking services altogether. In this piece in American Banker, we explore the issues that arise with the way […]
Tweet New York real estate developer being sued for $18 billion for accepting alleged proceeds of corruption from foreigners who were known PEPs According to an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, real estate developers in New York are being sued for accepting proceeds of corruption from politically exposed persons (PEP). The plaintiffs are […]