Many potential whistleblowers with knowledge of money laundering and sanctions violations have chosen not to blow the whistle due to shortcomings in the recently established Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Whistleblower Program, advocacy group Taxpayers Against Fraud (TAF) alleges in a letter to Congress.
Since Congress established the AML Whistleblower Program with the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering of Act 2020 in January 2021, whistleblower advocates have been pushing for reforms to the program. On September 20, TAF continued the push by sending a letter to the members of the Senate Banking Committee ahead of its hearing “Tightening the Screws on Russia: Smart Sanctions, Economic Statecraft and Next Steps.”
Largely modeled off the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA), which established the highly successful Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Whistleblower Program, the AML Act established a whistleblower award program in order to incentivize and protect whistleblowers. However, the AML Act differed from the DFA in a number of key ways. Whistleblower advocates claim these discrepancies are undermining the program.
According to whistleblower advocates, two of the main shortcomings in the AML Whistleblower Program are the lack of a mandatory award minimum and the reliance on Congressional appropriations. In contrast, the DFA guarantees that a qualified whistleblower receives an award of at least 10% of the funds collected in an enforcement action connected to their disclosure and...
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