They’re Watching You: An Examination of Whether the United States Should Impose Anti-Money Laundering Regulations onto US Lawyers
After earning their illegal gains, criminals must introduce those funds into a legitimate financial system, lest they risk raising the suspicion of law enforcement officers or leaving a trail of incriminating evidence. Money laundering is the process criminals use to disguise their financial assets so that they can spend their ill-gotten gains without risking exposing their underlying crimes. Therefore, since money laundering provides the “fuel for drug dealers, terrorists, arms dealers, and other criminals to operate and expand their criminal enterprises,” reducing money laundering is critical to reducing international and domestic criminal activities. However, the current anti-money laundering (“AML”) legislative framework in the United States, the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (the “BSA”), has been ineffective in significantly curtailing domestic money laundering. In the United Kingdom, the two pieces of legislation that address AML regulations are the U.K. Money Laundering Regulations 2007 (the “Regulations 2007”) and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“POCA”). The United Kingdom initially extended some of its AML regulations to lawyers in response to a 2001 directive from the European Union, but in December 2007, it formally adopted the Regulations 2007 that were drafted to conform with international standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”). This note recommends that the United States should not adopt the United Kingdom’s approach of mandating AML regulations in the legal field and instead recommends that the ABA to educate attorneys on the risks of facilitating money laundering.
Recommended Citation: Scott Rothstein, They’re Watching You: an Examination of Whether the United States Should Impose Anti-Money Laundering Regulations onto US Lawyers, 43 Fordham Int'l L.J. 1389 (2020).