By Aaron Nicodemus2020-12-16T20:55:00+00:00
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday approved revamped rules laying out what commercial oil, natural gas, and mineral extraction companies must disclose about payments they make to U.S. and foreign governments.
The rules had first been issued as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 but were knocked down in a 2012 lawsuit filed by the American Petroleum Institute (API). A second version of the rules was rescinded by Congress in 2017 using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The SEC issued a third, revised set of rules in 2019 and made several tweaks in the final version passed Wednesday most notably, by significantly extending the compliance deadline until 2024.
By Aaron Nicodemus2020-12-11T22:01:00+00:00
Tucked into the $740 billion defense spending bill Congress approved Friday are several anti-money laundering (AML) provisions that could dramatically improve law enforcement’s ability to identify and prosecute criminals laundering money through the U.S. banking system.
The “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021” (H.R.6395) contains a provision (Section 6403) that will require corporations to identify who owns and controls them (i.e., beneficial ownership) to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) at the U.S. Treasury. The bill also includes a provision (Section 6314) that creates a new Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) whistleblower program at the Treasury.