Hat tip to the reader who sent in this WSJ piece containing additional detail commentary on last week’s update: “American Bar Association Votes to Amend Rule on Client Due Diligence” —

• “Supporters of the change hope the move will help ward off more stringent regulation from lawmakers concerned about the use of lawyers to facilitate financial crimes.”
• “U.S. lawyers on Tuesday voted to adopt a revised rule that imposes a more explicit obligation to vet potential clients, as part of an effort to quell concerns about the use of lawyers to facilitate money laundering and other financial crimes.”
• “In a speech ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Kevin Shepherd, the ABA’s Treasurer, said that the U.S. Treasury Department recently had informed him that a failure to pass the resolution would cause the agency to take immediate regulatory action as well as to lobby for legislation imposing additional obligations on lawyers. ‘It’s simple political reality, and we ignore it at our peril,” Shepherd said.'”
• “The ABA last year lobbied against a bill in the U.S. Congress that would have extended anti-money-laundering regulations for the financial sector to lawyers, accountants and other professional-service providers involved in company formation and money transfer.”
• “Lawyers who aid criminals can be criminally prosecuted, but critics have argued that a lack of enforceable regulation enables some lawyers to continue working for potentially problematic clients while ignoring red flags.”
• “Although the amendments approved Tuesday are only a slight change to the ABA’s existing rules, they proved controversial, with a number of the group’s most prominent members giving speeches both for and against the proposal. The group’s two largest sections, representing business and litigation attorneys, voted before the annual meeting to oppose the resolution. Critics argued that the amendments were vague and exposed lawyers to discipline.”
• “‘The proposed rule opens every lawyer up to potential liability,’ Paul “Chip” Lion, a delegate for the ABA’s Business Law Section, said during a speech before the vote. ‘The presumption will be that the lawyer should have known that the lawyer’s services were being used to commit a crime, had the lawyer just delved a little deeper into the facts and circumstances.'”
• “It isn’t clear how far the new rules will go in convincing the industry’s critics that further regulation is unnecessary. Scott Greytak, the advocacy director for Transparency International U.S., which seeks to fight corruption, called the new rules ‘window dressing,’ saying they would have little effect.”
• “The rules don’t spell out specific steps that lawyers should take in vetting a client, and several observers pointed out that they don’t appear to create a definitive obligation to determine the true identity of a client, such as the beneficial owner of a corporation or limited liability company that seeks a lawyer’s services.”
• “Instead, the amendments add guidance advising lawyers that their due diligence should vary based on the perceived level of risk represented by a client. Under the new guidance, a lawyer’s familiarity with a client might be one factor that gives assurance that less due diligence is needed.”

Same subject, different context, like worth tracking for real estate practices: “US set to unveil long-awaited crackdown on real estate money laundering” —

• “The U.S. Treasury Department will soon propose a rule that would effectively end anonymous luxury-home purchases, closing a loophole that the agency says allows corrupt oligarchs, terrorists and other criminals to hide ill-gotten gains.”
• “The long-awaited rule is expected to require that real estate professionals such as title insurers report the identities of the beneficial owners of companies buying real estate in cash to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).”
• “While banks have long been required to understand the source of customer funds and report suspicious transactions, no such rules exist nationwide for the real estate industry.”
• “Instead, FinCEN has operated real estate purchase disclosure rules, known as geographic targeting orders (GTOs), in just a handful of cities including New York, Miami and Los Angeles. The new rule is expected to effectively expand GTOs nationwide.”
• “Transparency advocates pushing for a nationwide rule point to the example of Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese businessman who, according to prosecutors, used an anonymous shell company to channel illicit profit from a fraud scheme into the $26 million purchase of a 50,000-square-foot New Jersey mansion in December 2021.”
• “Had Guo brought property across the Hudson River in Manhattan, it would have been subject to a GTO and likely flagged immediately to law enforcement.”
• “Guo, a onetime business partner of former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. His lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.”