Compliance Blog

On Friday, FinCEN issued guidance on SARs, which you can access here.   Here's the crux of the matter:

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is issuing this guidance to financial institutions so that they may better assist law enforcement when filing Suspicious Activity Reports regarding financial transactions that may involve senior foreign political figures, acting individually or through government agencies and associated front companies, seeking to move the proceeds of foreign corruption to or through the U.S. financial system.

The term “senior foreign political figure” includes: a current or former senior official of a foreign government or of a major foreign political party; a current or former senior executive of a foreign government-owned commercial enterprise; a corporation, business, or other entity that has been formed by, or for the benefit of, any such individual; the immediate family members of any such individual; and the widely and publicly, or actually, known close associates of any such individual.1 The term “proceeds of foreign corruption” means any asset or property that is acquired by, through, or on behalf of such corrupt public figures through misappropriation, theft, or embezzlement of public funds, the unlawful conversion of property of a foreign government, or through acts of bribery or extortion, and includes any property into which any such assets have been transformed or converted.

In order to assist law enforcement in its efforts to target foreign corruption and related money laundering and, ultimately, deny the perpetrators access to the fruits of such corruption – and, in particular, to ensure that transactions relating to foreign corruption are identified by law enforcement as early as possible – we request that financial institutions include the term “foreign corruption” in the narrative portions of all Suspicious Activity Reports filed in connection with such activity.

FinCEN also recently issued its annual report for fiscal year 2007  You can access it here.  The report provides a good overview of what has happened in the past fiscal year, including guidance documents, rules and other guidance-related information.  This might be a good document to use when creating a board training session or annual BSA-related report for management.  Just a thought...

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Over the weekend, the Compliance Guy and Gal traveled north to watch Penn State's annual Blue/White game.  (It's a glorified scrimmage.)   Some guy always sells t-shirts that say something along the line of: Penn State's Blue and White Game: Where Penn State Always Wins!" I always mention that Penn State always loses this game, too.  But the t-shirt guy never wants to discuss the merit of my argument.  But it was a great excuse to eat Peachy Paterno ice cream, bad-mouth Pitt, and to start countless sentences with "when I went to school here..."