DIRTY MONEY AND PRICELESS ART

We offer a feature on how high-value assets like art are increasingly used to facilitate international tax fraud and money laundering (ML). The art market’s lack of transparency – combined with its global reach and subjective valuations – makes it a prime vehicle for illicit financial flows. We would examine how art holdings enable tax evasion and ML across borders and what role offshore jurisdictions play in concealing ownership. Several countries and international jurisdictions, such as the EU and the UK, have already sought to bring the art world under their AML/CFT laws, but only now the US has a bill to regulate art dealers and auction houses under the Bank Secrecy Act. What loopholes in current US and international regulations are being exploited? How will the proposed bill change compliance expectations for dealers and collectors? And how might this legislation influence global efforts to regulate luxury asset markets, considering how big the US market is?