The National Whistleblower Center (NWC) and its counsel are questioning whether the U.S. Treasury’s proposed rules for the new anti-money laundering whistleblower program could gut protections for whistleblowers and undermine efforts to root out financial crime. NWC submitted formal comments on the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (“FinCEN”) proposed rules for Whistleblower Incentives and Protections. The 19-part comment, submitted on April 30 by NWC, criticizes the draft regulations and questions their divergence from the statutory framework Congress created to govern the program.
FinCEN’s proposed rule implements the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (“AML”) and Anti-Money Laundering Whistleblower Improvement Act of 2022 (“AML WIA”), touted as the newest – and broadest – U.S. federal whistleblower laws. The AML was modeled after the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower provisions, which established the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”)’s whistleblower programs. The SEC program in particular is considered by anti-corruption advocates to be one of the most successful anti-corruption measures ever implemented by the U.S. government, recovering more than $6.3 billion in monetary sanctions since 2010.
Congress passed the AML WIA on December 23, 2022, aiming to strengthen enforcement of sanctions and anti-money laundering statutes by expanding incentives and protections for whistleblowers. Two attributes set...
Renowned human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, has criticised President Bola Tinubu for relying on claims by United States President Donald Trump regarding the reported killing of senior Islamic ...