AC Interactives Illustrate How Anti-Money Laundering Legislation Is Increasingly Protecting the Art Market in the United States and Globally
September 24, 2020
The Antiquities Coalition’s Financial Crimes Task Force has joined many others in urging Congress to include the art market in the country’s main anti-money laundering (AML) legislation, the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which requires at-risk institutions to assist the U.S. government in detecting and preventing financial crimes.
On July 21, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, which would amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, so as to apply the BSA to dealers in art and antiquities. While the bill remains pending in the U.S. Senate, its initial passage in the House is a great step forward in our fight to defend the art market—and it’s also been a long time coming.
We shed light on how the U.S. got from the advent of the Bank Secrecy Act to this monumental accomplishment in our interactive timeline of U.S. Anti-Money Laundering Legislation, featured below:
In addition to this timeline, we have also published a map of foreign anti-money laundering legislation, allowing readers to compare how the U.S. and other countries around the world safeguard their respective art markets—and, in particular, to see how the protections enacted by the U.S. still trail behind those already enacted in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the European Union. Take a look:
These interactives were first published in the September 24 release of our Financial Crimes Task Force report. Devised by a diverse group of experts, this report features 44 recommendations for how the U.S. government, the U.S. financial industry, the international community and the U.S. art and antiquities sector can work together to keep financial crimes out of the American art market.
For more information about the Financial Crimes Task Force and its recent report, click here.