Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice shone an unwelcome spotlight on five law firms that were connected to transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars of allegedly laundered foreign money, some of it tied to the funding of the film “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Some of the firms served as conduits for the money, while others were more peripherally involved.
Thanks at least in part to lobbying by the American Bar Association, U.S. law firms—unlike those in the U.K. and the European Union—do not have to report suspicious money transfers. Would different reporting requirements have allowed the DOJ to step in earlier, and possibly saved the firms some public scrutiny in the process?
