Dec 14/Cleveland, OH+Web - Preventing the Financing of Terrorism: the Role of Financial Institutions

Both U.S. and international law have long required regulated financial institutions to help fight money laundering by through a series of due diligence measures. These include identifying their customers, establishing client profiles, monitoring for unusual transactions, reviewing those transactions to see if there was suspicion that they involved the proceeds of crime and, if so, reporting the transaction to the authorities in the form of a suspicious activity report (SAR). When these requirements were first established neither financial institutions nor their supervisors had much experience as to what in a client’s profile and the client’s patterns of transactions might indicate money laundering. However, based on an expanding knowledge of how criminals tend to launder their money, over time financial institutions have developed increasingly effective detection and reporting systems. By studying known examples of laundering, authorities have identified patterns or indicators of possible money laundering and made them available to financial institutions as money laundering patterns or red flags. Using these sources, financial institutions have been able to develop systems to help them determine which transactions carry a materially greater risk that laundering is involved.


Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the duties of financial institutions were expanded to detect and report terrorist financing. However, there was little in the way of known patterns of terrorism financing that financial institutions could use to help identify such transactions. For this reason, the U.N. Counter-terrorism Implementation Task Force requested a comprehensive study on past terrorism financing techniques that would add to value to efforts by both financial institutions and governmental authorities in identifying terrorism financing patterns. This recently completed study provides evidence of how terrorist actually use financial institutions to support terror. This study should help both financial institutions in implementing their due diligence requirements and government authorities tasked with ensuring implementation.
Title:
Preventing the Financing of Terrorism: the Role of Financial Institutions
Date/Time/Place:
Dec 14, 2011 - 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
The City Club of Cleveland
850 Euclid Ave., 2nd floor
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
Webcast
Free and open to the public.
1. hr. continuing legal education credit available, pending approval.
Speaker:
Richard Gordon
Professor
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Professor Richard Gordon teaches courses on corporate governance, financial sector regulation, money laundering and terrorism financing and international and comparative taxation. Prior to coming to Case Western Reserve University, Professor Gordon practiced law at Dewey Ballantine (now Dewey & LeBoeuf) in Washington, DC and taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, where he was a visiting lecturer in the law faculty, and the Harvard Law School, where he was Deputy Director of the International Tax Program. While at Harvard, Professor Gordon completed extensive field work on law and development in both Indonesia and India and advised the government of Indonesia on the reform of tax, company, and securities laws. After leaving Harvard, he joined the staff of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) where worked on a wide variety of issues, including governance, debt restructuring, financial integrity, and taxation. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001 Professor Gordon was appointed to the select IMF Task Force on Terrorism Finance and was a principal author of the report on the role of the IMF and World Bank in countering terrorism finance and money laundering. He is a principal author of the book Tax Law Design and Drafting (2001) and the author of numerous scholarly articles and book chapters. Professor Gordon is currently leading a study of terrorism financing for the U.N. Counter-terrorism Implementation Task Force. He was Visiting Associate Professor of International Studies at Brown University in the spring of 2009 and continues as Adjunct Associate Professor.
Supplemental Readings:

• Bibliography
• Losing War Against Dirty Money
• Search for Terrorists Money Trail

The webcast is provided by the University of Akron and should be accessed here:
http://fms.uakron.edu/applications/city_club_of_cleveland/live.htm
Future Case Downtown Lectures are scheduled:
Spring 2012: January 11, February 8, March 14, April 11, May 9, June 13
More:
http://law.case.edu/Lectures/LectureRegistration.aspx?lec_id=283