News

An Arkansas state appellate court ruling has bankers worried that the heretofore impregnable U.S. Bank Secrecy Act "safe harbor" protection they receive for filing suspicious activity reports may not be airtight. The court ruled in June that suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed in 1997 and 1998 by the Bank of Eureka Springs were not protected by the safe harbor because the bank knew there was "no possible" violation of law and acted "maliciously." Thus, the bank's customer who was the subject of the SARs could sue the bank for "malicious prosecution" for including information in the SARs the bank knew...