Procedures for the Handling of Retaliation Complaints Under the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA)

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Occupational Safety and Health Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>29 CFR Part 1992</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number: OSHA-2022-0005]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1218-AD37</RIN> <SUBJECT>Procedures for the Handling of Retaliation Complaints Under the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Labor. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This document provides the interim final text of regulations governing the anti-retaliation provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA or the Act). This rule establishes procedures and timeframes for the handling of retaliation complaints under AMLA, including procedures and timeframes for complaints to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), investigations by OSHA, appeals of OSHA determinations to an administrative law judge (ALJ) for a hearing de novo, hearings by ALJs, review of ALJ decisions by the Administrative Review Board (ARB) (acting on behalf of the Secretary of Labor (Secretary)), and judicial review of the Secretary's final decision. It also sets forth the Secretary's interpretations of the AMLA anti-retaliation provision on certain matters. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This interim final rule is effective on January 14, 2025. Comments and additional materials must be submitted (post-marked, sent or received) by March 17, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit comments by the following method: <E T="03">Electronically:</E> You may submit comments and attachments electronically at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> which is the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Follow the instructions online for submitting comments. <E T="03">Docket:</E> To read or download comments or other material in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> . Documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> index; however, some information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> copyrighted material) is not publicly available to read or download through the website. All submissions, including copyrighted material, are available for inspection through the OSHA Docket Office. Contact the OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693-2350 (TTY (877) 889-5627) for assistance in locating docket submissions. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name and the OSHA docket number for this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> document (OSHA-2022-0005). OSHA will place comments and requests to speak, including personal information, in the public docket, which may be available online. Therefore, OSHA cautions interested parties about submitting personal information such as Social Security numbers and birthdates. For further information on submitting comments, see the “Public Participation” heading in the section of this document titled <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> . <E T="03">Extension of comment period:</E> Submit requests for an extension of the comment period on or before January 29, 2025 to the Directorate of Whistleblower Protection Programs, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue NW, Room N-3647, Washington, DC 20210, or by fax to (202) 693-2199. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Philippe Blancáto, Investigative Specialist, Directorate of Whistleblower Protection Programs, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, Room N-3647, 200 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20210; telephone (202) 693-2199 (this is not a toll-free number) or email: <E T="03">osha.dwpp@dol.gov</E> . This <E T="04">Federal Register</E> publication is available in alternative formats. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> On January 1, 2021, Congress enacted the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, Public Law 116-283, 134 Stat. 3388 (January 1, 2021) which included significant reforms to the U.S. anti-money laundering framework, including the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. That law was, in turn, amended by the Anti-Money Laundering Whistleblower Improvements Act, Sec. 401 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, Public Law 117-328, 136 Stat 4459 (enacted December 29, 2022). The anti-retaliation provisions, codified at 31 U.S.C. 5323 (g)(1)-(3) & (5)-(6), and referred to throughout this interim final rule as AMLA, the Act, or the AMLA anti-retaliation provisions, prohibit retaliation by an employer against a whistleblower in the terms and conditions of employment or post-employment in reprisal for the whistleblower having engaged in protected activity. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Protected activity under AMLA includes any lawful act done by a whistleblower in reporting certain information to the Secretary of the Treasury; Attorney General; a Federal regulatory or law enforcement agency; any Member of Congress or any committee of Congress; or the employer of the individual, including as part of the job duties of the individual. The employer includes “a person with supervisory authority over the whistleblower, or such other person working for the employer who has the authority to investigate, discover, or terminate misconduct.” 31 U.S.C. 5323(g)(1)(A)(iv). Protected activity also includes any lawful act done by a whistleblower in initiating, testifying in, or assisting in any investigation or judicial or administrative action of the Department of the Treasury or the Department of Justice based upon or related to such information. 31 U.S.C. 5323(g)(1)(B). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  In addition to the AMLA anti-retaliation provisions, 31 U.S.C. 5323 establishes a whistleblower award program administered by the Department of the Treasury. That award program is not a subject of this rulemaking. </FTNT> The information must relate to violations of certain enumerated statutes, including violations of 31 U.S.C. chapter 53, subchapter II (31 U.S.C. 5311-5336), chapter 35 or section 4305 or 4312 of title 50, U.S.C., or the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (21 U.S.C. 1901 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), or conspiracies to violate the aforementioned provisions. 31 U.S.C. 5323(a)(5) (as amended). 31 U.S.C. chapter 53, subchapter II is part of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The legislative framework generally referred to as the BSA consists of the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970, Title II of Public Law 91-508 (October 26, 1970), as amended by the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (USA PATRIOT Act), Public Law 107-56 (October 26, 2001), and other legislation, including the AMLA. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to administer the BSA and to require financial institutions to keep records and file reports that “are highly useful in criminal, tax, or regulatory investigations or proceedings” or in the conduct of “intelligence or counterintelligence activities, including analysis, to protect against international terrorism”. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Authority to implement, administer, and enforce compliance with the BSA and its implementing regulations has been delegated to the Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the Department of the Treasury. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <E T="03">See https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-and-regulations/bank-secrecy-act; https://bsaaml.ffiec.gov/</E> . “Chapter 35 of Title 50” refers to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. 1701 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> as amended, which authorizes the President to take certain actions, including, but not limited to, the regulation of transactions subject to U.S. jurisdiction involving property in which any foreign country or foreign national has an interest, to deal with any unusual or extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or in substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President has declared a national emergency with respect to such threat. 50 U.S.C. 4305 and 4312 are provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA); section 4305 authorizes during time of war, among other measures, regulation of transactions subject to U.S. jurisdiction involving any property in which a foreign country or foreign national has an interest, while section 4312 authorizes seizure and holding of foreign-owned property in trust during times of war. The Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, 21 U.S.C. 1901 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> effectively applies the authorities in the IEEPA, 50 U.S.C. 1701 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> to significant foreign narcotics traffickers and their organizations operating worldwide. <E T="03">See https://ofac.treasury.gov/</E> (explaining the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) administration and enforcement of IEEPA, TWEA, and the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act). <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The BSA is codified at 12 U.S.C. 1829b, 12 U.S.C. 1951-1960, and 31 U.S.C. 5311-5314 and 5316-5336, and includes notes thereto, with implementing regulations at 31 CFR chapter X. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  31 U.S.C. 5311(1). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Treasury Order 180-01 (Jan. 14, 2020). </FTNT> Providing information regarding any conduct that the whistleblower reasonably believes constitutes a violation of any law, rule, or regulation subject to the jurisdiction of the Department of the Treasury, or a violation of section 1956, 1957, or 1960 of title 18 (or any rule or regulation under a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 110k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━