Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a proposed rule intended to “fundamentally reform” financial institutions’ anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism programs under the Bank Secrecy Act. The three key changes according to FinCEN: Those all sound more like goals than changes. It doesn’t tell us what the…
Beginning March 1, 2026, select professionals involved in real estate closings and settlements are required to report information to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for non-financed transfers of residential real estate to legal entities or trusts. The Department of the Treasury has long recognized that the illicit use of residential…
Sliding in at the end of the deadline, FinCEN released an interim final rule that removes the beneficial ownership reporting requirements for U.S. companies and limits it to only those entities that are formed under the law of a foreign country and that have registered to do business in any U.S. State or Tribal jurisdiction. The…
Following the FinCEN announcement that it was going to ignore the Corporate Transparency Act requirement, the law suffered another loss in a Michigan case. This time the loss was due to a different part of the consitution. Judge Jonker in the Western District Court of Michigan in the Small Business Association of Michigan v. Janet…
The ups and down of the Corporate Transparency Act and its Beneficial Ownership Information reporting continue to smash compliance and legal departments against their lap bars. The current release from FinCEN feels like another loop-de-loop. On February 18, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in the case of Smith, et…
Brinks just paid a $37 million fine for willful violations of the Ban Secrecy Act. As a result of Brink’s failures, hundreds of millions of dollars in bulk currency shipments were transmitted across the Mexican border. Some of these shipments were for high-risk entities, including a Mexican currency exchanger that pleaded guilty to violating the…
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network filed its appeal to a ruling issued by Texas District Judge Jeremy Kernodle in the Samantha Smith v. FinCEN case that still blocks the implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Treasury Department last month in the Texas Top Cop case challenging the law, but…
This year is Anti-Money Laundering year for registered investment advisers. FinCEN promulgated the Investment Adviser Rule. With the Bank Secrecy Act now applicable to registered investment advisers, with a compliance deadline for January 1, 2026, fund managers and advisers will need to update their anti-money laundering policies and procedures to deal with the new regulatory…
LPL Financial LLC, a dually registered investment adviser and broker-dealer, failed to follow its own anti-money laundering policies and procedures regarding its Customer Identification Program and ongoing customer due diligence obligations. The Securities and Exchange Commission and LPL settled on the charges and the $18 million penalty. What can we learn from the case? On…
Robinhood experienced massive growth during the pandemic. It had had 5.1 million cumulative net funded accounts by the end of 2019, 12.5 million cumulative net funded accounts by the end of 2020, and 22.7 million cumulative net funded accounts by the end of 2021. Based on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s action against Robinhood, the…