House Passes Anti-Financial Fraud Bill After Senate Approval

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed by a vote of 367 to 59 an anti-financial fraud legislation, known as the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, that seeks to add more teeth to the federal authorities’ fight against financial fraud.

The House approval came after the Senate passed on April 28, 2009 the legislation that was sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and co-sponsored by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del.

The complete title of the proposed legislation is “To improve enforcement of mortgage fraud, securities fraud, financial institution fraud, and other frauds related to federal assistance and relief programs, for the recovery of funds lost to these frauds, and for other purposes,” and was passed by the House on May 6, 2009.

In total, the bill authorizes $245 million a year over the next two years to hire more than 300 Federal agents, more than 200 prosecutors, and another 200 forensic analysts and support staff to rebuild our nation’s “white collar” fraud enforcement efforts, said Sen. Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, in a closing statement at the Senate session on April 28, 2009.

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