Winston is closely monitoring de-banking regulations and advising global financial institutions on customer onboarding and due diligence, including, more recently, issues relating to anti-debanking and anti-derisking legislative and regulatory developments. As federal and state governmental scrutiny of debanking practices intensifies, our attorneys are at the forefront, providing our clients with practical, business-focused solutions to help them navigate this complex and rapidly changing environment.

In this alert, Carl Fornaris and Fernanda Legaspe examine the Florida Financial Services Commission’s recent approval of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation’s (OFR) request to publish notices of proposed rulemaking to clarify and implement procedures under Florida House Bill 989 (HB 989). They break down what’s changing, where state and federal requirements may conflict, and concrete steps to shore up governance, documentation, and cross‑functional controls.
Following the Florida Financial Services Commission’s approval of the Florida OFR’s request to publish notices of proposed rulemaking to clarify and implement procedures under Florida’s HB 989, Florida regulators have moved to significantly expand the state’s anti–de-banking framework—reaching who may file a complaint, what can be alleged, and who must certify compliance. The OFR’s proposed rules would require an executive officer to sign the annual attestation, broaden the definition of customer to capture vendors and other business relationships, and heighten expectations around citing suspicious activity as a basis for adverse actions—raising potential tensions with federal suspicious activity report confidentiality.

On October 14, 2025, the U.S. Trade Representative imposed substantial fees on Chinese-built, otherwise Chinese-connected vessels, and most foreign-built vehicle carriers whether built in China or not. On the same day, the Chinese Ministry of Transport imposed retaliatory fees on “US vessels.”