WASHINGTON—A major overhaul of America’s anti-money laundering laws is another step closer after the House of Representatives’ most recent action, according to one analysis.
The House has passed a bill that would force middlemen-like trust companies and lawyers to “more closely scrutinize the source of money and assets flowing into the country’s financial system,” ICIJ.org reported.
The bipartisan Establishing New Authorities for Businesses Laundering and Enabling Risks to Security (ENABLERS) Act was included in House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the House last week and which includes a number of CU priorities, as well.
The bill amends the 52-year-old Bank Secrecy Act by requiring for the first time that trust companies, lawyers, art dealers and others investigate clients and report suspicious activity to the U.S. Department of Treasury.
Banks are already required to vet their clients and sources of wealth, but “other American financial gatekeepers have been excluded from so-called due diligence rules – a loophole long criticized by financial crime experts and international watchdogs,” ICIJ.org noted.
Timely Passage
Scott Greytak, director of Advocacy for Transparency International U.S., said the passage of the bill through the house was timely, and called on the U.S. Senate to follow suit.
“Cracking down on American enablers of global corruption is a national security priority of the highest order,” he said in a statement. The Enablers Act “is the single most important anticorruption measure the United States Congress can adopt right now to prevent corrupt Russian officials and future kleptocrats from hiding and growing their dirty money in the United States.”