Compliance & Ethics

Beneficial ownership is one of the most established concepts in anti-money laundering compliance. It is also one of the most persistently misunderstood in practice. At onboarding, most financial institutions collect beneficial ownership declarations, identify individuals with controlling interests, and document ownership percentages as part of standard due diligence. On the surface, this appears to satisfy regulatory expectations.

Federal prosecutors announced that Matrix Medical Network, HealthFair, and HealthFair founder Shahriah “James” Ekbatani have agreed to pay a combined $56.5 million to resolve allegations that unsupported and invalid diagnoses were used to increase payments from the Medicare Advantage program. Matrix will pay $36.5 million, while HealthFair and Ekbatani agreed to pay $5 million and $15 million respectively.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has published supplementary guidance on money laundering risk analysis, acknowledging improvements across the financial sector while warning that significant weaknesses remain in how some institutions assess and manage financial crime risk.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve Board, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced Tuesday that they have updated additional interagency documents to eliminate references to reputation risk, continuing a broader effort to strip the concept from federal bank supervision.

According to Ofgem, OVO Energy had policies designed to identify and protect vulnerable customers using prepayment meters. The problem was what happened after those policies were written. In case after case examined by the regulator, key checks were missed, customer interactions were not properly recorded, and safeguards intended to protect vulnerable households were not consistently carried out.

The Hellenic Competition Commission has fined VF Hellas €954,485 after concluding the company used its contracts with retailers to shut off some of the most important routes consumers use to find products online. The restrictions covered brands including Vans, Eastpak, and The North Face and applied not only to school supplies but also to clothing and footwear.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has reached a $1.05 million settlement with consulting giant FTI Consulting over apparent violations of U.S. sanctions targeting Russia's financial sector, concluding that the firm indirectly extended prohibited debt to Russian state-owned lender VTB Bank on multiple occasions.