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.
U.S. officials believe that representatives of at least two major American banks agreed to help top Afghan officials disguise hundreds of millions of dollars in corrupt funds, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Dubai's economic downturn has made the emirate more cooperative in enforcing international sanctions but has also given the emirate less incentive to crack down hard on regional money laundering, say analysts.
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.
Officials are concerned that Iran may have "sleeper cell" agents in the Arabian Peninsula conducting financial transactions and preparing potential retaliatory action for the Persian country, according to a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
The head of a powerful U.S. Senate panel is pushing to include new corporate transparency measures as part of broader financial reform legislation, according to former and current staffers.
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.
The Qatari government has failed to comply with nearly a third of the international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulatory controls recommended by an intergovernmental watchdog.
Marc Hambach, an assistant director of the Dubai Financial Services Authority and head of its AML department, spoke with reporter Brian Orsak about the process of developing regulations for one of the fast growing financial hubs in the world.