Congress Overrides President’s Veto, Clearing Way for Anti-Money Laundering Act

On January 1, 2021, the Senate joined the House in voting to override President Donald Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (“NDAA”). Originally passed by the Senate on December 11, 2020, the NDAA includes the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (“AMLA”) – a sweeping reform designed to modernize and strengthen the United States financial crime monitoring system. Most central to the AMLA is the creation of a central registry to track the beneficial owners of business entities registered in the United States. The AMLA also seeks to expand the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) and Patriot Act regimes, by directing the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) to consider digital currency related risks as part of a national AML process. To read more about the legislation, please see Ropes & Gray’s previous alert, here.