§3420 Grand Jury Information; Notification of Certain Persons Prohibited

Summary

When a federal grand jury gets a customer's financial records from a bank or other financial institution under a subpoena, those records must be returned and shown to the grand jury. If there are too many records to hand over, the grand jury must get a description of what they contain. The records may only be used to decide whether to charge someone, to prosecute the case the grand jury charged, or for reasons allowed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) or 12 U.S.C. 3412(a). If the records are not used for those purposes, they must be returned or destroyed. Government agencies may not keep copies or descriptions except in the grand jury’s sealed files, unless the records were used in the prosecution or for a Rule 6(e) purpose. No officer, director, partner, owner, employee, agent, or attorney of a financial institution may tell anyone named in such a grand jury subpoena—when the investigation involves crimes against a financial institution or supervisory agency, the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act (21 U.S.C. 951 et seq.), 18 U.S.C. 1956, 1957, or 1960, 31 U.S.C. 5313, 5316, 5322, 5324, 5331, 5332, 26 U.S.C. 6050I, or a conspiracy to commit these crimes—about the subpoena or the information given to the grand jury. Violations are subject to the penalties in 12 U.S.C. 1818 and 12 U.S.C. 1786(k)(2).