Arthur D. Middlemiss

The U.S. Senate joined the House of Representatives and passed the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, a defense spending bill, which included the Corporate Transparency Act (the “Act”).  That Act sets forth an expansion for the disclosure requirements for certain US and non-US companies doing business in the United States. 

Banks serving clients in the many countries the U.S. views as high risk for money laundering should be aware that the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, plans to expand its use of “special measures” to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. 

Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss made its debut this year in Chambers’ annual Latin America Guide, ranking as a leading international firm in the Corporate Crime & Investigations practice area.

LBKM is the only boutique firm to be so ranked.

LBKM partner Art Middlemiss was quoted extensively in a Salon.com article on the factors that will affect the former president's criminal sentencing.

New York federal prosecutors have asked a judge to sentence the minority owner of a financial institution to two years of probation for his failure to make sure the institution was following anti-money laundering regulations, saying he was less culpable than the company's compliance officer.

On March 2, 2023, the US government published a multi-agency notice setting forth red flags and warning of enhanced enforcement efforts related to third-party intermediary evasion of US Russia-related sanctions and export controls.  The Financial Times subsequently reported that a senior Treasury official stated that the UAE was a “country of focus” for US investigators.

Art Middlemiss appeared on the Gatenox series "Crypto Compliance" to discuss the FTX scandal from a compliance perspective. 

The Lafarge case illustrates the extent companies with operations in high-risk jurisdictions must be aware of increasing ATA-related risk, including the risk of civil litigation.

En una demanda por confiscación de fondos presentada ante una corte del Distrito Sur de Nueva York, los fiscales estadounidenses explicaron porqué el movimiento de esos dólares en su entrada y paso por el país norteamericano sería ilegal.

According to U.S. authorities, the U.S.-based activities of “blue dollar peso exchangers” are illegal, and those exchangers that maintain U.S. bank accounts are subject to asset forfeiture and criminal prosecution. The recent U.S. forfeiture case brought by U.S. authorities in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Partners Capital Investment (“PCI”) illustrates intense interest by U.S. authorities in the “blue dollar peso exchange,” and additional U.S. actions should be expected. 

OFAC, banking regulators and criminal enforcement authorities agree: there are big cases to be made in the crypto space. The latest example is OFAC’s October 2022 sanctions enforcement action against crypto-trading platform Bittrex, Inc.

Arthur Middlemiss and Cristián Francos secured the return of all funds seized by the U.S. Department of Justice from U.S. accounts maintained by two broker-dealers based in Uruguay and New Zealand, respectively, both of which operated in Argentina. 

On December 9, 2021, the Biden administration published the first-ever United States Strategy on Countering Corruption. This Strategy sets forth a “whole-of-government” approach to combating corruption in the United States and around the world. Individuals and entities should expect an increase in sanctions and scrutiny of activities that present high corruption-related risk. As such, companies and individuals should immediately review current business activities to ensure that they understand their exposure to corruption-related risk and have in place commensurate controls to deter and detect potential problems. A proactive approach to corruption risk now will provide material future benefits if the expected increase in regulatory and law enforcement scrutiny results in a corruption-related inquiry.

In 2020 and beyond, foreign banks should expect the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, to expand its use of so-called special measures.

Arthur Middlemiss spoke to Corporate Counsel regarding the September 27, 2019 consent order entered by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission detailing corruption offenses by Barclays PLC. 

Adam Kaufmann, Art Middlemiss and John Moscow remember "The Boss," longtime Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Colleges and universities must recognize the risk of potential corruption in their admissions process, and build intelligent controls to guard against fraud. Lewis Baach’s Arthur D. Middlemiss explains that schools should employ cost-efficient compliance measures and warns of the dangers in failing to do so.

Art Middlemiss heads a team of attorneys representing Good Morning America Co-Anchor, Lara Spencer against the fraudulent use of her name and likeness in skincare ads. “If I tell you that I'm selling you one thing, but I really sell you another thing, that's fraud,” Middlemiss told GMA. “I'm telling you that I'm selling you a product that's endorsed by a celebrity, when it hasn't been endorsed by a celebrity. That's a fraud.”

"Puerto Rico es un centro financiero sofisticado que forma un centro natural entre América Latina y los Estados Unidos", dijo Art Middlemiss, un profesional de cumplimiento y socio de Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss. "La conferencia mostró el compromiso de la comunidad bancaria internacional de Puerto Rico con las mejores prácticas internacionales de cumplimiento y su reconocimiento de sus responsabilidades como miembros del sistema financiero global".

Criminals are opportunists. They like money. There’s a ton of money in college basketball. And, as evidenced by the federal criminal charges against 10 people, including four Division I NCAA men’s basketball assistant coaches and a senior executive at a major athletic apparel company, no one seems to keep a particularly close eye on that money — and pots of unsupervised money create attractive opportunities.

Woodsford Litigation Funding, one of the leading global third party funders, has announced a funding facility agreement with Lewis Baach which ensures the firm can offer clients an expedited, one-stop arrangement for the financing of high value litigation and arbitration.

Mr. Francos is mentioned in the article.

Learning the tell-tale signs of human trafficking transactions empowers AML investigators both to protect their institutions and to provide law enforcement real, actionable intelligence.