August 12th, 2013
On August 1st, new anti-money laundering (AML) measures were introduced under the Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act, and it would force US states to identify individuals behind corporations formed under state law. There has been great debate over whether or not these measures are necessary, but recently FINRA has fined Oppenheimer and Co. for unregistered penny stock sale and AML violations.
Had Oppenheimer had proper AML programs in place, they would have been able to catch the penny stock and avoid the situation. Since regulations are already fairly strict on AML, this begs the question of whether or not the Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act is necessary. If this law were passed, individuals who wanted to hide their identity would be pushed to move their money offshores according to Keith Williamson, a managing director at Alvarez and Marshal. The benefit to increased transparency would be a greater ability to combat tax evasion, which is a problem the US government hopes to better respond to.
