Global Trade & Foreign Policy Insights

There is no doubt that United States regulators and government agencies have been paying close attention to the virtual currency industry over the past several years. In the past few months, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued two publications highlighting its growing focus on the virtual currency industry

On October 19, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) imposed a $60,000,000 civil penalty against Larry Dean Harmon, the founder and operator of bitcoin “mixers” Helix and Coin Ninja LLC (Coin Ninja), for willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

On April 15, 2020, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council released updates to the Bank Secrecy Act /Anti-Money Laundering Examination Manual.

On March 13, 2020, President Trump declared a National Emergency in response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Starting the week prior and continuing to date, federal financial institution regulators and related government agencies have released guidance to address concerns.

On February 6, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued the 2020 National Strategy for Combating Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing (the “2020 Strategy”), which provides an important roadmap of expected updates to the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (“AML/CFT”) regime in the United States.

On October 22, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2513 – the Corporate Transparency Act of 2019, (the CTA); the legislation currently sits with the Senate Banking Committee – as does a similar Senate bill S 2563, the ILLICIT CASH Act.