Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2672 actions· ✨ 89 recent

FinCEN published the Beneficial Ownership Information Access and Safeguards Final Rule (FR Doc 2023-27973, 88 FR 88732, December 22, 2023; effective February 20, 2024), implementing the access and disclosure provisions of Section 6403(c) of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) enacted as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. The rule defines six categories of authorized recipients permitted to access the FinCEN BOI database — US federal agencies engaged in national security/intelligence/law enforcement, state/local/tribal law enforcement, foreign law enforcement and competent authorities (via intermediary federal agency), financial institutions using BOI for customer due diligence (CDD), federal functional regulators assessing financial-institution CDD compliance, and Treasury officers/employees. Access is to be phased in, beginning with a 2024 pilot for key federal agencies before extending to financial institutions and their supervisors. The rule establishes data-security standards, re-disclosure prohibitions, and oversight mechanisms governing each recipient category.

FinCEN published a final rule (FR Doc 2023-26399, 88 FR 83499, November 30, 2023; effective January 1, 2024) extending the initial beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting deadline under the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) for reporting companies created or registered in calendar year 2024. Rather than the default 30-day window, these companies receive 90 calendar days from the date of receiving actual or public notice of creation or registration becoming effective to file their initial BOI reports with FinCEN. Companies created before January 1, 2024 retain their original deadline of January 1, 2025; companies created on or after January 1, 2025 revert to the standard 30-day window.

FinCEN published a final rule (FR Doc 2023-24559, 88 FR 76995, November 8, 2023; effective January 1, 2024) specifying when and how entities required to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) under the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) may use another entity's FinCEN identifier in lieu of disclosing the underlying individual beneficial owners. A reporting company may substitute a related entity's FinCEN ID when: (1) that entity has obtained a FinCEN identifier and provided it to the reporting company, (2) the individual is a beneficial owner solely through an ownership interest in the other entity, and (3) the beneficial owners of both entities are the same. Any change to beneficial ownership of the other entity requires an updated BOI report, after which the entity FinCEN identifier may no longer be used until recertified.

Saudi Arabia's Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL), issued under Royal Decree M/19 (16 September 2021) and substantively amended by Royal Decree M/148 (27 March 2023), entered into force on 14 September 2023 with a one-year transition period that ended on 14 September 2024 — at which point the Saudi Data & Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) became the binding regulator with full enforcement powers. Alongside the Implementing Regulations and the Regulations on the Transfer of Personal Data Outside the Kingdom (both issued 7 September 2023), SDAIA published in 2024 a set of four pre-approved Standard Contractual Clauses templates (C2C, C2P, P2P, P2C) governing cross-border transfers. The regime establishes consent requirements, DPO appointment, a 72-hour breach notification duty, and prior-clearance / SCC-or-BCR-style conditions on personal-data exports out of Saudi Arabia.

FinCEN published a final rule on January 19, 2023 (88 FR 3312) adjusting the maximum civil monetary penalties for Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations under 31 CFR § 1010.821, as mandated by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (as amended by the 2015 Improvements Act). The 2023 multiplier is 1.07745, reflecting the October 2021 → October 2022 CPI-U change per OMB Memorandum M-23-05. A correction notice (88 FR 7357, Feb. 3, 2023) revised certain table entries; the corrected amounts are authoritative and are reflected in this filing. The table covers 10 BSA statutory penalty provisions, with the largest single-penalty ceiling rising to $1,677,030.

OFAC published a final rule on January 13, 2023 adjusting the maximum civil monetary penalty (CMP) ceiling amounts across multiple statutory sanctions authorities as mandated by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (as amended by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015). The adjustment covers IEEPA, TWEA, and the Narcotics Kingpin Act authorities, resetting the penalty ceilings that apply to violations adjudicated through 2023. A correction notice (C1-2023-00593, April 17, 2023) fixed a purely typographical error in Appendix A to 31 CFR Part 501 — paragraph numbering "v" corrected to "vi" — with no change to any penalty amount.