NCJ Number
188152
Date Published
March 2001
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This report looked at how Federal bank regulators were overseeing "suspicious activity report" (SAR) compliance, in the detection and prevention of money laundering, for broker-dealers under their jurisdiction before and after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and actions taken by the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) to oversee SAR compliance of broker-dealers previously monitored by bank regulators.
Abstract
The report addressed the concern that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) would affect oversight ensuring the securities industry's compliance with U.S. anti-money laundering requirements. Since the passage of GLBA, broker-dealer subsidiaries of depository institutions and their holding companies were no longer being examined to assess their compliance with reporting currency transactions and other requirements Treasury placed on broker-dealers. Before GLBA, Federal bank regulators were responsible for examining broker-dealer firms affiliated with depository institutions for compliance with banking "suspicious activity report (SAR) rules. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not assumed examination responsibility because they have no specific authority to enforce broker-dealer compliance. The SEC has not examined broker-dealer terms for SAR compliance because it cannot enforce the bank regulators SAR rules. The SEC is working with Treasury to develop a SAR rule tailored to the securities industry. Once issued, the SEC will examine broker-dealer compliance with SAR rules.