As we have blogged (here, here, here, here and here), the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (“the AMLA”) amended the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) to expand whistleblower incentives and strengthen whistleblower protections. At a high level, the AMLA amended 31 U.S.C. § 5323 to provide that if the government recovers more than $1 million through an AML enforcement action, any qualifying whistleblower will receive a mandatory reward of up to 30% of the collected amount. Although this amendment was heralded as a major change, whistleblower attorneys and watch dog groups bemoaned the fact that there was no guaranteed monetary floor for an award (i.e., it could be zero to 30%), and that Congress had not actually provided for funding of awards.
Congress addressed these perceived deficiencies by passing the “Anti-Money Laundering Whistleblower Improvement Act” (“the Act”), which was signed into law on December 29, 2022. The Act presumably will motivate both would-be whistleblowers and the plaintiffs’ bar to pursue AML-related claims more vigorously, now that Congress has sweetened the pot.
First, the Act entitles whistleblowers to an award of between 10 and 30 percent of the value of “monetary sanctions” above $1 million collected as a result of an enforcement action (importantly, “monetary sanctions” do not include forfeiture). For “related actions” in which the whistleblower may be paid by another whistleblower award program for his or her information, awards can dip below these...
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