Financial Regulatory Forum

By Susannah Hammond

LONDON/NEW YORK, July 20 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - The United States Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations has published a report into U.S. Vulnerabilities to Money Laundering, Drugs, and Terrorist Financing using HSBC Group plc as a case history. The report does not detail enforcement action taken, though there are several likely fines being considered by a number of U.S. authorities regarding HSBC’s anti-money laundering (AML) failings; it is however a valuable insight into the operations and associated compliance, risk and AML issues arising in a global financial services firm.  (more…)

By Brett Wolf

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - U.S. Treasury Department reminded financial institutions of their obligation to lend a hand as the Internal Revenue Service struggles to crack down on rampant schemes using identity theft to obtain fraudulent tax refunds via electronic filings.

“Financial institutions are critical in identifying tax refund fraud because the methods for tax-refund distribution – direct deposit into demand deposit accounts, issuance of paper checks, and direct deposit into prepaid access card accounts – are often negotiated and deposited at various financial services providers,” Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) stated in an advisory issued Friday. (more…)

For most U.S. trained attorneys, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that even the mere possibility of litigation should be disclosed somewhere in a company’s annual report, writes Jesse R. Morton of Thomson Reuters Westlaw Business Currents. (Click here for further information.) But for attorneys preparing an annual report for a foreign filer from a less litigious country – basically every other country – take note this 20F/40F season: companies are erring on the side of conservatism when it comes to litigation risk. (more…)