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FERA Expands Enforcement Options

By Howard W. Goldstein

In the flurry of legislation Congress has passed during President Obama's first 100-plus days, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 (FERA), enacted in May, was easy to miss. Yet this small piece of legislation makes a number of significant changes to the federal money laundering and criminal fraud statutes ' changes about which lawyers who represent clients accused of white-collar crimes will want to be aware.

In short, FERA eases the prosecution's burden under the money laundering statute and increases the punishments for frauds affecting mortgage lending businesses or involving the sale of commodities. It amends the federal money laundering statute to extend the definition of “proceeds” under that statute to include the gross receipts of illegal activity rather than just profits derived from it, revises the definition of a “financial institution” as used throughout federal criminal law to include a mortgage lending business, and expands the federal securities fraud statute to apply to frauds involving commodities futures and options.

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