The cause of financial transparency just recovered some of the ground recently lost when the European Court of Justice struck down the EU directive on public access to corporate ownership data. Last Friday the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published draft regulations prescribing how certain limited — but quite important – members of the public can obtain information on the actual, beneficial owners of U.S. corporations.

The privileged group consists of law enforcement personnel. And significantly for the global fight against corruption, they include those from non-American as well as American agencies.

The rules for domestic agencies are straightforward, those for non-U.S. authorities less so as they incorporate the conditions Congress put on foreign agencies’ access. The request must be for a law enforcement purpose or national security or intelligence activity; it must be transmitted through a U.S. law enforcement intermediary, and the requesting government must have either an “applicable treaty” with the U.S. or else be a “trusted foreign government.”

For corruption-related cases these conditions would appear to pose no real hurdle. Moreover, in fleshing them out, FinCEN was attentive to foreign authorities’ needs. FinCEN defines “law enforcement purpose,” for example, to include civil forfeiture actions.

Between the diversity of foreign laws and the many types of agreements foreign partners have with U.S. counterparts, however, the agency cautions the draft regulations might still interfere with current arrangements. Anticorruption agencies, prosecution services, and other non-U.S. authorities should therefore examine the draft carefully, ideally in consultation with the U.S. agency or agencies with which they work. Comments are due by February 23.

I see one potential issue and have one question about the proposed rules.