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SEC Commissioner Denounces FinCEN Proposal

A conservative appointee to the Securities and Exchange Commission called a federal proposal to extend anti-money laundering requirements to registered investment advisers, or RIAs, “unjustified” Friday, three days before the window to comment on the measure closes.

In the letter, Hester Peirce, a member of the Federalist Society appointed to serve as one of the SEC’s five commissioners by then-President Donald Trump in 2017, wrote that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, also known as FinCEN, did not provide enough evidence showing that RIAs have been used to launder the proceeds of corruption and other crimes.

“Broker-dealers, mutual funds, futures commission merchants and banks are all subject to the full panoply of BSA [Bank Secrecy Act] requirements,” Peirce wrote. “It is hard to conceive of an adviser-related activity that would not fall within the regulatory ambit of some or all of those covered financial institutions.”

The proposal, which FinCEN pitched Feb. 13, would subject “certain investment advisers” to AML obligations by formally classifying them as financial institutions under the BSA, and delegate subsequent examinations of their compliance programs to the SEC.

Thousands of investment advisers function as gatekeepers to the U.S. financial system without adequate safeguards against money launderers and corrupt officials, the bureau claimed at the time.

Moneylaundering.com may update this coverage as more information becomes available.
Topics : Anti-money laundering , Securities
Source: U.S.: SEC
Document Date: April 12, 2024