Kenneth E. Barden, Asst. Attorney General for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, to Speak at GKC s The Patriot Act & AML Teleconference

8 June 2006

The Global Knowledge Congress, the leading producer of regulatory focused teleconferences has announced today that Kenneth E. Barden, former Acting Director, Bureau of Revenue, Customs and Taxation for the Republic of Palau and Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, will speak at the upcoming The Patriot Act and Anti-Money Laundering Teleconference for Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 11:00 AM (EDT).

The Patriot Act was formed in response to the terrorist attacks against the U.S. on September 11, 2001. This legislation dramatically expanded the authority of U.S. law enforcement for the stated purpose of fighting terrorist acts in the United States and abroad. Its impact has been far-reaching and in some cases has unexpectedly changed the ways in which businesses operate. Nowhere is this more evident than in the financial services industries, particularly in anti-money laundering procedures. The Patriot Act has not only changed the hard rules governing this process, but many of the "soft" rules as well. Seemingly without warning, long-standing financial definitions have changed or have expanded to include new elements. The Global Knowledge Congress has scheduled a teleconference for Tuesday, June 20 at 11:00 a.m. (EST) to analyze this critical legislation.

About Kenneth E. Barden

Kenneth E. Barden is an attorney has been admitted to the practice of law in Ohio and Indiana, as well as in the Republic of Palau and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. After serving as a municipal attorney for over 15 years in Indiana and Ohio cities, Mr. Barden went overseas where he served in several positions with the government of the Republic of Palau, including as an Assistant Attorney General, Legal Counsel to the Minister of Finance, and as Acting Director of the Bureau of Revenue and Tax and Customs. While serving in Palau, Mr. Barden was selected by the President of Palau and the Attorney General to lead the effort to implement new banking and anti-money laundering laws on behalf of that nation. In furtherance of that effort, Mr. Barden served as the Chair of the Banking Law Review Task Force and later as the first coordinator of Palau's financial intelligence unit.

After six years in Palau, Mr. Barden joined the Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, where he advised the Departments of Finance, Commerce, and Public Works on matters involving banking, tax, and public finance.

Most recently, Mr. Barden was a residential consultant for an Asian Development Bank project in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he developed an anti-money laundering audit and compliance manual, including training materials, for securities firms and non-bank financial institutions, such as insurance providers, finance companies, and pension funds. Of particular interest has been the susceptibility of these non-bank financial institutions to laundering money of corrupt officials.

Mr. Barden's first experience in combating money laundering actually occurred during his law school years, while serving as a paralegal/investigator at the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office in Indianapolis, Indiana in the late 1970s. As such, he was part of a team investigating what was then the largest home robbery in US history. A grocery store heiress, Marjorie Jackson, had been killed by a couple of robbers who had broken into her home. For various reasons, Mrs. Jackson kept barrels of hard US currency in her home amounting to millions of dollars. Fortunately, a few months before her murder law enforcement officials and bankers had talked to her and had noted serial numbers of the bills she had withdrawn from her bank. Within a couple days of the murder, the two criminals were spending cash on cars and other items throughout Indianapolis. Mr. Barden's role was to match up and trace the currency used in the crime to the lists of serial numbers of the bills recorded at the bank. During the trial, Mr. Barden testified as an expert witness explaining how the bills had been recorded and traced back to the original criminals.

As a city attorney in Richmond, Indiana and Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Barden handled debt and tax collection work, including work on uncovering fraud and using forensic accounting skills to be able to prove liability in court.

In 2003, Mr. Barden spent almost two months in the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan on an Asian Development Bank-funded project looking into potential projects that the ADB could propose with respect to anti-money laundering activities in those countries. That work entailed meeting with various government and financial officials, including officials of each country charged with anti-corruption activities, and developing proposed work plans that the ADB could then offer to each country for implementation. Mr. Barden's report in that project identified various vulnerabilities of each of those countries to money laundering, and included a focus on the corruptive activities of high level government officials as one of the influencing factors in each country’s vulnerability.

In February 2004, Mr. Barden conducted training workshops to Central Bank supervisors with the National Bank of the Ukraine on procedures for detecting money laundering and other financial crime. The World Bank sponsored that project.

Mr. Barden is a certified anti-money laundering specialist registered with the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), having passed his certification examination in September 2004. Mr. Barden has written a number of articles published by various organizations involved in AML activities, including a recent article on the vulnerabilities of remittance service providers to money laundering activities and recommendations on how to regulate such remittance services.

In addition to his law degree, Mr. Barden holds a Masters in Business Administration and a Masters in Public Administration. Recently, he completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Islamic Banking and Insurance through the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance in London, making him one of the few certified anti-money laundering specialists to have a qualification in Islamic finance.

Mr. Barden has recently embarked upon a consulting practice in anti-money laundering issues, focusing in particular upon the Asian and Pacific regions. He may be contacted at kenneth_barden@yahoo.com.

About The Republic of Palau and The Northern Mariana Islands

The Republic of Palau is an independent island nation in the western Pacific, while the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is politically affiliated with the United States. Both island depend heavily upon foreign tourism and investment. Concerns of money laundering have affected many of these islands proportionately greater than many other countries.

For more information about the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, please visit: http://www.gov.mp/index.html

About The Global Knowledge Congress

The Global Knowledge Congress is an organization that produces teleconferences that examine regulatory changes across a variety of industries. “We bring together the world's leading authorities and industry participants through informative two-hour teleconferences to study the impact of changing regulations.” To contact, please visit: http://www.knowledgecongress.org

Source: pr

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