Statement of Interest filed by the United States in the case of Wuliger v. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

~ THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN~ISTRICT OF OHIO
EASTERN DIVISION
WILLlAfv1 T. WUUGER, RECENER, Case No. 1:O5CYOIO8 PJaintiff, U.S. District Judge David A. Katz vs, OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY, ~~, Defendants. STATEMENT 0 ES Pursuant to 28 V.S.C. § 517,1 the United States Department of Justice, by its undersigned attorneys, hereby submits this Statement of Interest to protect from unauthorized disclosure aT).Y Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) submitted by financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 V.S,C. §5318(g)(1), from unauthorized discl.osure.,2 I 28 U.S.C.§ 517 provides in pertinent part: "Any ofticer of the Department of Justice(] may be sent by the Attorney Genera] to any. ..district of the United States to attend to the interests of the United States in a suit pending in a court oitheUnited States[.l" 2 The Board of Governors ot' the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Pedttal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the National Credit Union Administration concur with the arguments set forTh herein.

Background
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Nenvork 'FinCEN") is a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury, whose mission is to safeguard the financial system from the abuses of financial crime, including teITorist financlPg, money laundering, and other illicit activity- Pursuant to a delegation of authority fIorn the Secretary of the Treasury, FinCEN administers the recordkeeping, reporting, and anti-money laundering program requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 'U.S.C § § 5311, g.t. ~, and maintains a government-wide data access service that includes reports collected .. under this authority. ~ 31 V.S.C. § 310 This litigation involves an attempt by a private party to compel FinCEN's fellow Treasury agency. the Office of the Comptroller of the CulTcncy ("OCC"). to provide him with the most sensitive type of report collected under the Bank Secrecy Act -the Suspicious Activity Report ("SAR"; The Bank Secrecy Act provides specific limits on who may have access to any such reports collected under its authority (generally, certain govemment agencies) aJ1d the use to which any such reports may be put (criminal. tax, regulatory, and counter-tenorism). The Bank Secrecy Act extends special confidentiality protection to SARs 3JId even to the fact that one has been filed. Under this authority, FinCEN, the OCC, and the four other federal banking regulators al] have promulgated regulations strictly protecting the confidentiality of these highly sensitive reports. The complaint by its very nature calls into question FinCEN's SAR regulations, and places at risk one of the pillars of the Suspicious Activity Reporting system -its confidentiality. The United States, therefore, has an interest in protecting the SARs against unauthorized disclosure, as set forth in the Bank Secrecy Act.

Plaintjff in this action seeks declaratory and injunctive relief compelling the OCC to provide him with SARs, documentary material sl,lpporting any SARs, and any related information pertaining to persons and entities allegedly involved in a viatical fraud scheme. The issue presented by the OCC's entitled to such infornlation, may nonetheless compel its production despite the statutory and regulatory prohibitions on its disclosure. Statement of Facts The United States adopts, and hereby incol1>°rates by ref(trence, the statement of facts from the OCC's brief in support of its motion to dismiss or, in the alterative, for SillIlInary judgment. Summary of Argument Plaintiff in this action may not compel the production ofSARs, or even the acknowledgment of The Bank Se{;recy Act authorizes FinCEN (as the Secretary of their existence or non-existence. Treasury's delegee) to require financial institutions to file reports, including reports of suspicious activity, The Act further authorizes FinCEN to for regulatory, tax, criminal, and collnter-teITorism purposes, provide these reports to certain government agencies, to maintain them in a govenunent-wide data access network, and to administer ti!le network according to applicable legal guidelines and policies, Plaintiffs demand does not fall within these legal requirements. SARs, moreover, are entitled to additional protection from disclosure. Financial institutions that file them are statutorily prohibited irom disclosing to anyone involved in the transaction that the transaction has been reported, Pursuant to this authority, FinCEN, the OCC, and the other federal

other than appropriate law eMorcement and regulatory agencies of the filing, Courtsna*~upheld these regulations as reasonable interpretations oithe statute because disclosure, for example in litigation, makes it more likely that the persons invdlvedin the transaction will be notified of thefi]m~,iA derogation of the. Att! In an a~pt tOiend...rontllis prohibition, plaintiff has sought to compel disclosure fromagovemmental agency -the OCC. But that disclosure, too, is prohibited. The Bank Secrecy Act forbids governmental offic;:ials from making such disclosure, W11essthedisclo$~e is neces5~ to fulfill their official duties. Plainly, the fact that a plaintiff might find an SAR (or the fact of its existence or nonexistence) useful to its case has no bearing on the official need for a governnlental official tod1scloSe it. Were it otherwise, the disclosure prohibition would be rendered meaningless Congres$did not enact the Bank Secrecy Act to provide tools for civil discovery, and there is no injuStice in honoring that choice. As FinCENiiflhe OCC, and the courts have noted in:tbe past, the disclosure prohibitio!on SARs doe~ not extend to the underlying transactional documents (such as accoWlt records), and plaintiffs are free to seek such documents, question witnesses about them, and ultimately, to argue the inferences therefrom to the ultimate trier of fact. Accordingly, the OCC's Imotion to dismiss or, in the altem~tive, for summary judgment should be granted ARGUMENT A. The Statutoa and Regullitorv Framework Congress enacted the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970 to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to require reporting and recordkeeping deemed to have a "high degree of usefulness" to governmental Icriminal, tax, or regulatol)' investigations or proceedings. ~ 31 V.S.C. §,3.11 (declaration of Ii

purpose).) The implementing regulations, found at 31 C.F.R. Part 103, create a system of reporting and recordkeeping obligations intended to provide a paper trail to enable government investigators to :ollow the money. See gen~ra!ly Ca.Jifomia Bankers Ass'n v. Shul{~, 416 S. 21, 26-30 (1974)
Section 5319 of the Bank Secrecy Act requires the Secretary to provide infonnation contained in Bank
Secrecy Act reports to a governmental agency upon request.4 Implementing regulations prescribing those governmental entities entitled to seek access to Bank Secrecy Act infom1ation, and the methods for requ,~sting it. are found at 31 C.F .R. § 103.53, The initial focus of the Bank Secrecy Act was the tracking of large currency transactions, and the initial regulations required reporting of various transactions over $10,000 in currency. ~ 3 ( ,R. § 103.22 (cun-ency transaction reports); 31 C.F.R. §lO3.23 (reports of transportation of currency and monetary instruments); 31 C.F.R. § 103.24 (reports of foreign financial accounts). Congress expanded this focus in 1992 with the passage of the Annunzio- Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act, Pub. L. 102-550, Title XV, § 1517(1992), which added 31 V.S.C. § 5318(g) to the Bank Secrecy Act. This provision authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to "require any financial institution, and any director, officer I cmployee or agent of any financial institution, to report any suspicious transaction relevant to a possible violation of law or regulation Recognizing both the 3 ill the USA Patriot Act of2001, Congress amended 31 U.S.C. 5311 to include-as a purpose of the Bank Secrecy Act lithe conduct of intelligence or counterintelligence activities, including analysis, to protect against international teITorisffi." Pub. L. 107-56, Title ill, Sec. 358(a) (October 26,2001). 4 The USA Patriot Act of2001 amended this provision to include within the defmition of ((agency" a self-regulatory organization registered with the SecuritIes and Exchange Commission or fue Cornn10dities Futures Trading Commission. Pub. L. 107-56, Title III, section 358(c) (October 26, 2001).

sensitive nature of the infonnation and fue need to encourage the filing of these reports by the provision of appropriate legal protection, Congress included in the new statutory authorization two important provisions. First, it provided that filers and their agents "may not notify any person involved in the transaction that the transaction has been reported." 31 V.S.C. § 5318(g)(2)(A)(i). Second, it provided a "safe harbor" for filers aJld their agents, under which they "shall not be liable to any person under any law or regulation of the United States [or] any constitution, law or regulation of any State for such~ disclosure or for any failure to provide notice of such disclosure to the person who is the subject of such disclosure or to any other person identified in the disclosure." 31 U.S.C § 5318(g)(3)(A), In the AnnWlZio- Wylie Act, Congress f~er instructed the Secretary to designate a single agency or official to whom SARs sltall be made. ~ 31 V.S.C. § 5318(g)( 4). The Secretary designated FinCEN.S In 1996, FinCEN, along with the five federal banking regulators, promulgated Suspicious Activity Reporting roles for banks.6 The rule requires that a bank file an SAR with FinCEN on any transaction conducted or attempted to be conducted through it, which aggregates at least $5,000, and which the bank knows, suspects or has reason to suspect: (i) involves funds 5 The Secretary's delegation of Bank Secrecy Act authority to FinCEN is now embodied in Treasury Order 180-01 (available at Treasury's website, www.ustreas.gov). 6 See 31 C.F.R. 103.18. The five federal banking regulators are: the Office of the Comptroller of the CUITency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit msurance Corporation, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the National Credit Union Administration. Each agency promulgated a separate rule, although the rules are substantially similar, with the main difference being special treatment for insider abuse in the banking agency rules. More recently, FinCEN has issued suspicious actjvity reporting rules for money services business; broker-dealers in securities; and commodities futures commission merchants, all with the same disclosure restrictions discussed herein.

derived from illegal activities; (ii) is desigped to evade Bank Secrecy Act requirements~ or (iii) has no business or apparent lawful purpose and i~ not the sort in which the 'customer should no~ally be expected to engage and the bank knows o~ no reasonable explanation for the transaction, 31 C.F .R. § 103. 18(a)(2). FinCEN's regulation places additj~nal disclosure restrictions on SARs. Specifically, ilie rule requires that "any person subpoenaed or ofheI\vise requested to disclose a SAR or the infoffi1ation contain...ed in a SAR, except where such difclosure is requested by FinCEN or an appropriate law enforcement agency or bank supervisory ~ency, shall decline to produce the 8AR or to provide any infonnation that would disclose that a S4 has been prepared or filed," 31 C.F.R.§ lO3.18(e). The OCC's suspicious activity reporting regul4tion.contains similar language, ~ 12 C.F.R. § 21.11(k). The USA Patriot Act codified Fin4EN's rolc in administering the collection, use, and dissemination of Bank Secrecy Act repo~. ~ 31 U.S.C. § 310. FinCEN is charged with maintaining a government-wide data netwprkthat includes Bank Secrecy Act reports, 31 U.S.C. § 310(b)(B)(1); analyzing ana disseminatifg the material for certain purposes, 31 V.S.C. § 310(b)(C); and, as the Secretary's delegee, prov.iding rppropriate standards and guidelines for who is to be given access to the infonnation and the US~S to ,hich it may be put, 31 V.S..C. § 31 O( c )(2). At the san1e time, Congress stren~hened the SAR confidentiality provisions, adding new subsection 5318(g)(2)(A)(ii), which.provifes that "no officer or employee of the Federal Govenunent or of any State, local, tribal, or territorial ~overnment within the United States, who has any knowledge that such report was made may disclose tol any person involved in the transaction that the transaction has been reported, other than as necessarylto fulfill the official duties of such officer or employee. ..

Consistent with its regulatory interpretation of § 5318(g)(::;'.)(A)(i), FinCEN interprets this provision to prevent governmental officers and employees from makjng disclosures likely to lead to a disclosure to a person involved in a reported transaction, with the added qualification of official necessity. FinCEN interprets official necessity to mean necessary to accomplish a govenunental purpose entrusted to the officer or employee, for example, disclosure at trial required by statute (such as the Jencks Act), or the U.s. Constitution (such as exculpatory evidence), B ludic1 alified Privile 'cious Activit R arts Not long after Suspicious Activity Reporting requirements became effective, plaintiffs in civil litigation sought to obtain such reporrts and to hold banks liable for filing (or not filing) them. The Second Circuit addressed the interplay between the SAR confidentiality provision aIld the safe harbor provision in Lee v.Banker's Trust CIP., 166 F.3d 540 (2d Cir. 1999), affinning the djstrict court's dismissal of a defamation claim against a bank based on its alleged filing of an SAR concerning the plaintiff. Noting the confidentiality provision of the Federal Reserve's regulation, 12 C.F.R § 20S.20(k), which is identical to that ofFinCEN a11d the OCC, the court stated:
Our conclusion based on the language ofllie Act [that the filing of the SAR is protected by the safe harbor] is bolstered by a common sense appraisal of the safe harbor's place w'ithin the Act. Financial institutions ar~ required by law to file SARs, but are prohibited from disclosing either that an SAR has been filed or the infom1ation contained therein. See 12 C.F.R. 203.20(k) (1998). Thus, even in a suit for damages based on disclosures allegedly made in an SAR, a financial institution cannot reveal what disclosures it made in an SAR, .Q! even whethe(jt filed an SAR at all. 166 F .3d at 544 (emphasis added) This reasoning has been followed by a number of lower courts faced with motions to compel the production ofSARs. In Weilv: Longl§land Savings Bank, 195 F. Supp. 2d 383, 389 (E.D.N.Y. 2001). (he court found that the Suspicious Activity Reporting rules

prohibit disclosure of SARs or their content, and that the confidentiality privilege created by the statute and implementing regulations is not qualified and is not subjecto waiver. Accor~ Grego~ v. Bank One. Indiana. N.A., 200 F. Supp.2d lOOO, 1003 (S.D. Ind. 2002) ("There is no provision in the [Bank Secrecy] Act or the Rule allowing a court-order exception to the unqualified privilege"); Cotton v. Private Bank and Trost Co., 235 Po Supp.2d 809,815 (N.D. Ill. 2002); Whitne:y:~atiQnal Bank y. '. Karam, 306 F. Supp.2d 678,682 (S.D. Tex. 2004).7 Co~s have detennined that, although the statute specifically bars the disclosure of the SAR only to the persons involved in the transaction, the regulations forbidding any disclosure are authorized by the statute because a disclosure in litigation would make it more likely that the report would be disclosed to the persons involved in the transaction. ~,~, Q.QllQ.D., 235 F. Supp.2d at 815 ~ In_re Bankers Trust Co., 6.1 F.3d 465,469 (6th Cir. 1995), and Chevron USA. Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837 (1984) ("federal regulations should be adhered to and given full force and effect whenever possible"), As Cotton noted, a judicially-created exception to the non-disclosure rule would harm the interests the BaI1k Secrecy Act was intended to promote, by compromising an ongoing investigation, revealing methods by which banks are able to detect suspicious activity, deterring banks from filing by subjecting SAR preparers to retaliation by customers, and harming the privacy interests of innocent third parties whose names n!lay appear in a report. ~ Indeed, the hann from disclosure of 7 Although Cotton notes that in one Freedom of Infonnation Act case a portion of a SAR was ordered to be produced, DuDre v. Federal Bureau ofmvestieation, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9622 (E.D. La. May 22, 2002), after defendant filed an appeal an~ obtained a stay from the court of appeals, the plaintiff withdrew the request and the case was dismissed as moot. Although this information does not appear in the subsequent history, it can be found in that court's electronic case docketing system.

an SAR was recognized to be so serious, and the law protecting it to be so clear, that the Florida Court of Appeals issued the rarely granted writ of certiorari to vacate a discovery order issued by a state court. ~Inj~mational BankofMi~i v. Sbinitzkv, 849 So.2d 1188,1191-93 (Fla. Ct. App. 2003) As FinCEN and the regulators always have acknowledged and the courts have recognized, however, this prohibition does not extend to underlying transactional documents relevant to a claim or defense. Financial institution business records, such as account statements and wire transfer advices, are discoverable under the standards of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. ~, li, Whitney, 235 .. F. Supp.2d at 682-83; Cotton. 235 F. Supp.2d at 815-16. Plaintiffis free to seek such documents, What he CaImot do is invade the confidentiality of the Suspicious Activity Reporting system jtself. Perhaps recognizing the strength of this body of law, plaintiff has not sought SARs from banks, but from one of their regulators. If the confidentiality pTotections for SARs were held not to apply in such circumstances, then they would be rendered meaningless; a plaintiff could always circwnvent these protections by asking the government, rather than the filers, for the reports. The reports would then routinely be obtainable in civil litigation. This \vouldyield the type of absurd result forbidden by the principles of statutory construction. ~,U,., UnitedStatesv. X-Citement Video. Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 69-70 (1994).
Section 5318(g)(2)(B) of Title 31 clarifies that this is not the res'ult Congress intended. Rather,
government officials are subject to the same disclosure restrictions as filers, except willi respect to disclosures necessary to the perfonn~ce of their official duties. There is no legal basis for finding that disclosure of an SAR to a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit is necessary tQ the perfOmlance of a bank regulator's official duties. Seeking a court order to convert such disclosure into an official duty is

bootstrapping in the extreme. Rather, this is a narrow category.- examples of necessary official disclosures would include prosecutorial disclosures mandated by statute or the U.S, Constitution, such as where a report may contain a statement of a government witness to be called at trialJ impeachment material of such a witness, or materiil1 exculpatory of the defendant. Plaintiff does not fall within the categories of persons entitled to disclosure of an SAR, nor does private civil litigation constitute a p~itted use under the Bank Sec.recy Act. SARs are not discoverable in civil litigation, either from the filers or from the government agencies that regulate the .. filers. In the Bank Secrecy Act) Congress carefully balanced the interests of the government users and filers to craft a reporting system that would provide the appropriate incentive to encourage reports of wrongdoing while protecting law enforcement confidentiality and individual privacy interests. These interests also have been carefully ba]anced by FinCEN and the bank regulators in issuing and interpre.ting the implementing Suspicious Activity Reporting regulations. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, the United States respectfully requests that this Court protect against the unwarranted disclosure of SARs sought by plaintiff. Respectfully submltted, PETER D. KEISLER Assistant Attorney General ARTHUR R. GOLDBERG Assistant Branch Director

1st Herb~nE. Forr~st
HERBERT E. FORREST
Lead Attorney -Attorney to Be Noticed
Federal Programs Branch
Civil Division -Room 7112
U.S. Department of Justice
20 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D"C. 20530
Telephone: (202) 514-2809
Facsimile: (202) 616-8470 herbert. forrest@usdoj.gov D.C. Bar No. 4432 OF COUNSEL:
JUDITHR STARR
Chief Counsel
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
P. O. Box 39
Vierma, Virginia 222183
Telephone: (703) 905-3534
Facsimile: (703) 905-3735
Attorneys for the United States
April 5, 2005