Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, before joining with my colleagues in an important colloquy, concerning the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, I want to applaud Senator Grassley's tireless efforts that spanned years of bipartisan work to establish the first whistleblower reward program at the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

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Mr. CRAPO. Certainly. The NDAA conference agreement provides for whistleblower rewards with a 30 percent maximum of certain monies collected in cases involving Bank Secrecy Act violations, but provides for no explicit minimum award requirement.

The conferees agreed that updating the Bank Secrecy Act's whistleblower incentives and protections was necessary to protect individuals who provide original information which leads to any successful judicial or administrative Bank Secrecy Act action brought by the Secretary of the Treasury or Attorney General and results in monetary sanctions exceeding $1,000,000.

To accomplish this and to avoid any direct spending complications, our intention is to authorize necessary resources and work with appropriators and the administration to ensure that necessary funding be made available on an ongoing basis, that is effectively offset by BSA penalties imposed in these cases. Such funding will enable the Secretary to provide, subject to available funds, substantial whistleblower awards based upon monetary penalties recovered in those whistleblower cases.

It was always the intent of the conferees that these awards to individual whistleblowers are important and justified and that they be substantial, such that both a minimum and maximum percentage of such monetary sanction was contemplated. In this case, it is the intent of the conferees, in addition to the conference report providing for the stated maximum 30 percent award, to provide for a 10 prcent minimum award, as both reasonable and sensible.

Finally, it is the intent of the conferees that no such award should be made available to either employees of the Treasury Department, the Department of Justice, or covered law enforcement agencies, if the original information that led to the successful enforcement action is acquired acting in the normal course of their job duties.

We will work with Senator Grassley and with administration officials to provide for robust minimum awards which meet the 10 percent threshold wherever appropriate. We will work with the Senator in the next Congress to draft legislation that addresses the important concerns he has raised.

Does Senator Brown agree?

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