Money Laundering Bulletin

Timon Molloy, Editor

Which crimes can result in a Suspicious Activity Report? Derrick Paterson discusses indirect benefits and whose suspicion it is that is reported to SOCA.

The US is ramping up its efforts torecover tax from those liable to pay and foreign financial institutions with a US footprint must cooperate in identifying the evaders or face 30% withholding tax on US-sourced income. Combing the customer base for US taxpayers is no small task but it breaks down into clear, manageable actions, says Dr Tony Wicks, Director of AML Solutions at NICE Actimize.

Timon Molloy, Editor (timon.molloy@informa.com).

Cloud computing means sunny smiles from IT procurement and management but benefits are usually attended by costs. Michael Hyland of MHA tests the latest technological weather for AML.

The C-suite – does the ‘C’ stand for ‘Cussed’? It is a descriptor that many an MLRO would attach to senior managers, especially when advised that they need to attend AML/CFT training. Sue Grossey offers tips on how to handle this class of bright but difficult students.

Intelligence agencies are, by definition, secretive. So, too, are their budgets and how they finance covert activity, especially in foreign jurisdictions and where they carry out so-called ‘black ops’. If spies use techniques to quietly transfer funds that resemble the practices of organised crime or terrorist groups, there is one major difference, writes Paul Cochrane: the sometimes tacit cooperation between government agencies and the financial sector.

Asset recovery is regarded, increasingly, as an important law enforcement tool in Europe, writes Alan Osborn, with techniques becoming more sophisticated and integrated with prosecutions and investigations. The fundamental approach here is not new. ‘Go after the money’ has been a commonplace of law enforcement in the financial sector since at least the time of Al Capone. But there has undoubtedly been a sharp awakening of interest in the concept since around 2000 following the successful crackdown on organised crime in Ireland through the use of unexplained wealth orders (UWO) and a string of high profile prosecutions of Mafia figures in Italy using a similar approach. “Mafia members are prepared to spend time in prison, but to take their assets is to really harm these individuals,” the leading anti-Mafia prosecutor Raffaele Grassi, vice director of the Italian National Police told an Australian parliamentary committee in 2009.

Liquidity constraints threaten to drive Russian businesses to seek finance from the criminal sector. Eugene Vorotnikov in St Petersburg assesses the risk

The Supreme Court has ruled that, following an acquittal in criminal proceedings, it is not a breach of the defendant’s right to a fair trial for a civil recovery order to be made using the civil rather than criminal standard of proof. The court also ruled that the investigation costs of interim receivers in such cases are, in principle, recoverable as costs of and incidental to the civil recovery proceedings. Accordingly, such costs are, in principle, recoverable from the subject of the civil recovery order. Henry Garfield and Tim Pountain-Hole of Baker & McKenzie step through the decision.