SAR BECAUSE OF A SUBPOENA

Would you file a SAR because you received a subpoena on an account?
If yes, what would your narrative say?

Thanks for any comments and input.

I was just getting ready to ask a similar question except we received a grand jury subpeona last fall. Now the customer has gone to trial, been found guilty of insurance fraud and has to pay back millions to his customers. He is our customer. Do we file a SAR? I lean towards no because I don't know what I would say in the narrative other than what I read in the paper.

I've done it both ways. The logic I've used (and this is strictly mine) goes like this:

1) If I had seen these documents, transaction records, etc. prior to receiving the subpoena would I have filed a SAR? If the answer is "yes," I file.

2) Do I know more than what was asked for in the subpoena? For example: the DA asked for account records from June - December but if they had asked for April - December they would have seen something that might be significant. If "yes," I file.

3) Is there a possibility that the information I have might be of interest outside the jurisdiction that has requested it? If "yes," I file.

Of course this all assumes that the information rises to SAR reporting thresholds. If you're looking at a $500 bad check beef you don't file unless it's an insider.

I had the same question a few months ago. Only if you feel something on the account is suspicious, not necessarily because you received a subpoena. Found this on BOL

SARs & Subpoenas

Thank you all!
Happy Friday !
And have a great weekend !

What about Levies? Is anyone reviewing accounts based on the receipt of a levy?

No, we are not. I do not consider a tax levy to be in the same categogy as a subpoena.

It would be the height of silliness to file a SAR with the only thing in the narrative saying:

"We are filing this SAR because we received a Grand Jury Subpoena."

The purpose of the SAR is to notify law enforcement of suspicious activity they don't already know about. If you've received a Grand Jury Supoena, I'm sure law enforcement knows the darn thing was filed!

In addition, even though a SAR is confidential, a Grand Jury Subpoena is equally, if not more confidential. I am NOT comfortable putting the word out there that a Grand Jury Subpoena was received on a certain customer because other agencies that may not know about the GJS would then be given knowledge.

We have received a GJS and reviewed a customer's account and found nothing out of the ordinary that would have caused us to file a SAR. So we did not file a SAR because of the GJS because we had nothing to say.

We also received a GJS BECAUSE of SARs that we filed. So why would we file any more SARs? The SARs obviously did their job.

we review the accounts to look for any other financing shenanigans such as structuring. Even though we normally identify structuring on our own we take a look when we receive a subpoena. We have found structuring across corporate accounts. So we do look just in case.

Government requests for information, formal and informal, as well as lawsuits involving the bank, should be fed into the suspicious activity process. As noted in the AmSouth consent decree, the people in charge of SAR investigations should be made aware of of these activities and conduct their own investigation.

However, SAR filing is based on the bank's actual suspicions in conjunction with the filing thresholds. Nothing outside of those instructions triggers an automatic SAR, not the receipt of a subpoena, a positive response to an OFAC hit, or a positive response to 314(a) hit.

Thank you all. My original question originated (of course) from an examiner telling me I had to do this.
And I disagree.

Good grief

We've incorporated a process whereby the "SAR" employee is notified of any GJS and researches if a filing is needed. We changed our procedures to reflect the change in our process.

It is not mandatory Princess.

MC,
How did the examiner respond?

Quote:

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It is not mandatory Princess.

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I know that - my post must be confusing. I'll edit it.

What I meant was I didn't realize that *some* examiners were saying it was mandatory (even though it isn't). Thanks - I'll clarify.