In January, Congress enacted the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA), which significantly revised the existing whistleblower provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act and created a new enforcement regime modeled on the highly successful whistleblower program of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Even though FinCEN has not issued rules implementing this new whistleblower law, tipsters do not need to wait to file a complaint with their employer or the government. In other words, the doors are open to whistleblowers now.
As we write in a recent article with the American Bankers Association, financial institutions should consider the implications of the AMLA on their existing whistleblower programs, the expanded legal risk, and how they can supplement their existing anti-money laundering compliance programs now during this time between the enactment of the statute and the promulgation of the program rules—something we call the "gray period."
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