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A new whistleblower program was passed as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 with respect to the violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and was amended in 2022 to include information related to sanctions violations. In the current geopolitical environment, these sanctions include those with transactions linked to Russia. Uniquely, the AMLS Whistleblower program extends to conduct that occurred before the program was in place.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) within the Department of Treasury is tasked with administering the rules governing when and how companies and individuals do business with sanctioned entities and controls. U.S. persons and entities must conform with economic sanctions programs administered by the OFAC. It has lists of sanctioned countries and specific persons whose property is subject to blocking and with whom U.S. persons and entities cannot conduct any business transaction. Whistleblowers can report violations to the Department of treasury.
A reward of up to 30% of the monetary payment the U.S. Government receives as a result of the information provided by a whistleblower. However, if the U.S. Government makes less that $ 1 Million, then there is no reward for a whistleblower.
Given the sanctions against countries like Russia by the Western Hemisphere, willingness of Indian entities to violates these sanctions and pump Russian money into the Western trading economies is information that is being sought through international whistleblowing programs against money laundering such as the AMLS Whistleblower program. Providing information about violations of sanctions over $1 Million could result in rewards to the whistleblowers.
Amongst the various laws that the U.S. has to impose economic sanctions, the AMLS Whistleblower programs extend to sanctions under the following U.S. legislations:
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network(FinCEN) enforce the Bank Secrecy Act which also is part of the AMLS Whistleblower program. The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), 31 USC 5311 et seq. establishes program, recordkeeping and reporting requirements for national banks, federal savings associations, federal branches and agencies of foreign banks. Thus the AML Whistleblower Scheme also covers violations of Bank Secrecy Act which requires Financial Institutions in the U.S. (or dealing with U.S. customers) to put in processes to prevent money laundering and other misuse of financial institutions. For example, not maintaining sufficient KYC Programs as an international cryptocurrency exchange that deals with U.S. based customers could fall under the ire of the Bank Secrecy Act.
No. A whistleblower can be any person, including employees from a competing business, clients of the company, third-parties, recipients of service or goods of the fraud committing company, and former or present employees of the company.
Unlike the SEC Whistleblower program, there are no limitations on anyone working in compliance directly becoming a whistleblower of the entity that they are a compliance officer at. Like the SEC program independent analysis of publicly available information can count as a whistleblower complaint, as long as of course, the Government is not already in the know of the complained of conduct.
The whistleblower does not have to be residing in, and the illegal conduct does not have to occur in the U.S.
This very recent whistleblower program is meant to have a wide international reach and whistleblowers can file complaints anonymously to protect their identity. The only requirement to file an anonymous complaint is that the whistleblower needs to be represented by a qualified counsel.
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