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The leak of millions of records purporting to show widespread exploitation of offshore financial centers by global leaders, lenders and criminals is expected to draw governmental scrutiny of illicit finance, however unevenly.
The Obama administration is pushing lawmakers to introduce legislation that would require corporations to obtain tax identification data that could be turned over to investigators.
U.S. officials will formally propose this month a long-planned rule that would require banks to identify the owners of their corporate clients, according to an Office of Management and Budget schedule.
Intergovernmental plans to better identify corporate owners will do little to thwart financial crooks, even at great cost to banks and governments, according to an academic report on offshore financial flows.
EU parliamentarians voted Tuesday to require member-states to update their laws targeting money launderers and the financiers of terrorism, in part by naming corporate owners.
A European Parliamentary committee Thursday approved far-reaching changes to the EU's rules combating money laundering and terrorist financing, including an amendment that would require nations to publicize corporate owners.
A U.K. plan to name the owners of privately-held corporations will help shine a light on shell companies, but how revealing that effort will be remains uncertain.
British asset management firms are failing to adequately address their vulnerabilities to money laundering, bribery and corruption, the United Kingdom's chief financial regulator said Thursday.
British officials are set to propose legislation that would require private corporations and limited liability partnerships to publicly disclose their individual owners, a U.K. minister said Monday.
U.S. Treasury Department officials are weighing whether to exempt trusts and offer more flexibility on verification requirements in an upcoming proposal that would impose data collection duties on corporate accounts held at banks.
Critics of a U.S. Treasury Department plan to strengthen beneficial ownership reporting by financial institutions aired their concerns to Obama administration officials at a rare public hearing Tuesday.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday that it was considering imposing customer due diligence currently applied to private banking and correspondent accounts to all accountholders at depository institutions.
Few small financial firms in the U.K. have adequate anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance programs, including enhanced due diligence controls for high-risk clients, Britain's top financial regulator said Monday.
A revamped state-lead proposal to create more transparency in how companies incorporate isn't a lot different from earlier drafts and would leave legal gaps that would allow criminal exploitation, say former law enforcement agents.
Israel's Security Cabinet designated 35 groups linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban as terrorists. They are the first of many new sanctions aimed at global terrorist groups that focus their attacks on other countries. The designations bring Israel more in line with U.S. and European sanctions regimes.
Israel's chief financial regulator ordered the country's third largest bank to pay nearly $1 million Monday over the institution's poor anti-money laundering controls.
Israel Discount Bank said costs related to an anti-money laundering compliance settlement with the U.S. government have escalated to nearly $56 million, or more than twice the size of a regulatory penalty assessed against the institution in 2005.
Compliance costs tied to two civil money penalties totaling $20.5 million reached more than $30 million and could go higher if federal regulators determine the institution illegally allowed transactions linked to Iran, according to a third quarter filing by the bank.
The Fatah-run Palestinian government, which is vying with Hamas for the control of the divided Palestinian territories, is drafting measures to counter money laundering by its rival, but compliance experts say the effort is mere "window dressing."
The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said June 20 that U.S. companies can do business with the Palestinian Authority government headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah party. The U.S. had restricted certain financial transactions.
