Whistleblower Attorney Explains Urgency of Bill Protecting Money Laundering and Sanctions Whistleblowers

“Whether or not whistleblowers will be able to safely report Russian oligarchs and sanctions-busting is now in the hands of the House of Representatives,” writes leading whistleblower attorney Stephen M. Kohn in a new op-ed for The Hill. In the piece Kohn, a founding partner at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto and Chairman of the Board of the National Whistleblower Center, outlines the urgent need for the House to pass the bipartisan Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Whistleblower Improvement Act (S. 3316).

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the AML Whistleblower Improvement Act on December 7. “Why did the Senate take time to act on this bill during the ultra-busy lame duck session?” Kohn writes. “The answer resides in Russia. The Senate bill targets Russian oligarchs who laundered billions of dollars into Western banks. For the first time whistleblowers who know where that money is stashed will be incentivized to report those assets to the departments of Justice and Treasury. Potential whistleblowers working as bankers, financial advisors, or real estate agents, know where every penny of this ill-gotten wealth is hidden.”

Kohn outlines the key provisions of the AML Whistleblower Improvement Act, which are modeled on the Dodd-Frank Act, the law which established the highly successful SEC and CFTC whistleblower programs. These provisions include anonymity protections for whistleblowers, monetary awards, and a fund to run the program financed entirely by sanctions paid by criminals.

“It is simply unreasonable to expect that whistleblowers will risk their safety, jobs, and careers to report despicable criminals if they do not have strong confidentiality protections and the ability to obtain some compensation given the risks they face,” Kohn writes in conclusion. “The House must decide who is getting a Christmas gift — the Russian oligarchs who desperately want to continue to hide their billions, or the whistleblowers who are willing to risk it all to serve the public interest. We will know when the lame duck session comes to an end.”

Read: House must act on whistleblower bill to protect ‘insiders’ who report Russian money laundering | The Hill