If you receive a grand jury subpoena for any SAR filings from an agency like the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture, do you have to acknowledge the existence of any SAR and comply with the request and provide a SAR(s) and the documentation?? Need help quick!

The inspector's office obviously already knows that you filed. I'm sure they dug it up thru the Detroit Computing Center. Sure, comply and provide all documentation that you gathered to help their investigation.

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If you receive a subpoena for an actual SAR you are to notify FINCEN immediately.

I wouldn't provide copies of any SARs (they can get those themselves), but I would comply with an appropriate subpoena for bank records.

From FinCEN's November 23, 2010 guidance on SAR confidentiality:

If you or your institution becomes aware of an unauthorized disclosure of a SAR or if your institution receives a subpoena for a SAR, you should immediately contact FinCEN's Office of Chief Counsel at (703) 905-3590 as well as your primary federal regulator, as may be applicable in a corresponding SAR rule.

I suggest you call the national, not the local, office of your regulatory agency.

Any true LEA has direct or indirect access to the SAR data base; they do not have to get them from you.

Ken are you sure of your answer. I also found the following in the 11/23/guidance:

However, the regulations make clear that, provided no person involved in the transaction is notified that the transaction has been reported, the prohibition does not include disclosures to (1) FinCEN; (2) any Federal, state, or local law enforcement agency; (3) any Federal regulatory agency that examines the depository institution for compliance with the BSA;

Sicen it was from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture I belive you can supply the SAR

I'd make sure of whether that office qualifies as (1) a law enforcement agency, or (2) a regulator who examines my bank, by contacting FinCEN before releasing the SAR.

Agreed. Given the recent guidance on this issue, I would be want to be 100% sure of whom I'm dealing with and whether or not they should have access to a SAR. At the end of day, the only entities opinion that really matters on this issue would be that of FinCEN.

I could be mistaken, but I think that is referring to notice of an issue or activity to law enforcement, not provision of an actual SAR. There are any number of circumstances that could warrant notifying law enforcement of a situation for their immediate investigation or intervention. You would then include that information in your SAR.

Actually, it states that those are acceptable exceptions to the general prohibition against revealing that a SAR has been filed, assuming, of course, that no subject of a SAR may ever be so notified. Again, I'd strongly urge that the bank check with FinCEN concerning whether the Ag Department's IG office is a law enforcement agency authorized to receive such information. It most certainly is not the bank's regular regulator for exam purposes.

I can't imagine any circumstances in which I would be comfortable providing information to anyone in the Dept of Agriculture before checking with FINCEN and my own federal regulator.

I would really follow this advise. I just did our annual BSA policy review, and it is very clear and specific that you DO NOT release any SAR information and to contact FINCEN if you do get a subpoena

Yes, from reading the four corners of the guidance, I'm sure of the answer...a subpoena for a SAR requires notice to FinCEN and the bank's federal functional regulatory agency.

As John and Kaybee note, the agencies you notify might do some arcane analysis of the demanding party's LEA status then tell you you can comply. That does not waive the notice requirement.

For the record, the Investigative Division of the Department of Agriculture's OIG is law enforcement.

http://www.usda.gov/oig/invest.htm

FYI, there are gun toting agents of the FDIC's OIG that are law enforcement officers, and the same is true for most other US Government OIG offices. It's the HHS OIG law enforcement people that investigate Medicare Fraud and the HUD OIG law enforcement that often investigate Mortgage Fraud in our area. They all have arrest powers and I know Treasury, FDIC, HHS and HUD OIG investigative agents have access to SARs.

Thank you for the correction. Here's an albeit unofficial web site site that lists federal law enforcement agencies. It includes several OIGs.

Well here is what came of my original situation - which I may not have handled correctly from some of the posts:
I told the person from Dept of Agriculture OIG that he couldn't subpoena me for SAR info. I told him if he had a specific request for back-up documentation regarding a specific SAR filing that he had researched, that I could provide that to him.He seemed confused and didn't understand what I was talking about. A few days later I was contacted by a FBI agent who had an SAR in hand with filing date etc(for same customer) and the FBI agent requested the documentation that went with the filing. I feel more protected responding to the request now.