Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
The United States has a long arm in imposing financial restrictions. U.S. companies cannot assist their foreign subsidiaries or affiliates with sales to sanctioned countries or persons on the blocked persons list. A US company got caught doing this. White Birch was accused of facilitating the sale and shipment of Canadian paper from White Birch’s … Read more »
On four separate occasions, an individual purchased jewelry from one of the Cartier boutiques located in California or Nevada for shipment to Shuen Wai Holding Limited in Hong Kong. I’m sure the store routinely ships purchases around the world. The problem is that Shuen Wai Holding Limited is named as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker … Read more »
The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has started to look closely at cash purchases of expensive real estate as a possible source of money laundering. In January, FinCEN issued two Geographic Targeting Orders, one for New York and one for Miami. Now more metropolitan areas are in FinCEN’s sights. According to the press release, FinCEN has been … Read more »
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s new customer due diligence rule requires covered financial institutions to collect information on the significant beneficial owners of customers that are legal entities. For a private fund manager, the rule is not explicitly applicable. The term ‘‘covered financial institution’’ refers to: (i) Banks; (ii) brokers or dealers in … Read more »
I’m vastly understating that number. We know that thieves planned to run that much through the Philippines gambling establishments. It’s a clear case of appeasing a local industry by writing loopholes in legislation. A month ago, thieves began looting Bangladesh’s account at the New York Federal Reserve. The transfer of the money had been “fully … Read more »
Real estate in the United States has been rumored to be an interesting place for hiding money. In particular, the US Treasury is concerned about illegal money getting filtered through US real estate. Until now, FinCEN has mostly relied on anti-money laundering protections on real estate transactions involving lending. FinCEN is now looking at vulnerabilities … Read more »
To start with the obvious, helping terrorists and drug kingpins with their finances is bad. The US regulatory machine has been clamping down tighter on financial institutions who engage in this bad behavior. As the bad acts continue, the regulators keep tightening the regulatory requirements. The latest tightening of the screws comes from New York. … Read more »
After years of talking about it, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a proposed a rule requiring certain investment advisers to establish anti-money laundering programs and report suspicious activity to FinCEN. The new regulations propose to include investment advisers in the general definition of “financial institution,” which would require them to file Currency Transaction … Read more »
The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has been toying with how to impose anti-money laundering standards on private funds and investment advisers for years. There is rumbling from the White House Office of Management and Budget that it approved proposed new regulation. A notice of rulemaking was dropped a few years ago. The thought then … Read more »
A group of nonprofit organizations urged the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to repeal the 2002 temporary exemption from provisions of the Patriot Act that had been granted to the real estate industry. The letter was a reaction to the Towers of Secrecy story in the New York Times. Behind the dark glass towers … Read more »