After years of debate, regulators are poised to require registered investment advisers to implement anti-money laundering (AML) programs mirroring those of banks, broker-dealers and other financial institutions. Not since Dodd-Frank have investment advisers faced such meaningful change to the regulatory framework underlying their operations; they will have to create an infrastructure to facilitate formal compliance with AML rules, as well as suspicious activity reporting and information-sharing requirements that may be new to most advisers. In a two-part guest series, William P. Barry, Kimberly Versace and Jamie Schafer, partner, counsel and associate, respectively, at Richards Kibbe & Orbe, analyze the anticipated role of investment advisers in the U.S. AML regulatory framework. This article discusses the genesis and impact of proposed regulations that would apply to investment advisers. The second article will recommend steps investment advisers should take now to protect themselves in anticipation of the new regulations and ensure they can meet their AML compliance obligations. For more on the proposed AML regulations, see “How Hedge Fund Managers Can Establish an AML Program Under FinCEN’s Proposed Rule (Part One of Two)” (Nov. 5, 2015). For additional insight from practitioners at RK&O, see our two-part “Succession Planning Series”: “A Blueprint for Hedge Fund Founders Seeking to Pass Along the Firm to the Next Generation of Leaders” (Nov. 21, 2013); and “Selling a Hedge Fund Founder’s Interest to an Outside Investor” (Jan. 16, 2014).