The House Committee on Foreign Affairs Thursday unanimously approved a measure that would penalize foreign banks that offer financial services to Hezbollah, an Iran-backed, Lebanon-based Shiite militant group.
U.S. officials Tuesday charged a blacklisted Chinese national with using shell companies to maintain accounts at American banks and offered five million dollars for information on his whereabouts.
The financial clearing subsidiary of Deutsche Börse AG will pay the U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions enforcer $152 million for holding money in New York-based accounts on behalf of Iran's central bank.
As early as Monday, banks will be able to do what has become seemingly unthinkable in the sanctions compliance field during recent years: ramp up their ties to Iran.
The chairman of a Senate committee vowed Thursday to block additional sanctions against Iran in an effort to protect last month's multilateral accord to suspend portions of the country's nuclear program.
Western financial institutions won't radically amend their sanctions controls in response to an agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for a relaxation of banking restrictions, say former officials.
Despite tightened controls on interbank messaging, some bankers looking to hide the role of their blacklisted clients in international wires need only type a single key on their keyboard, according to experts.
Federal officials will weigh whether financial institutions can bank medical marijuana shops, New York's financial regulators asks two financial consultancies for data and more, in this week's news roundup.
Germany's BaFin is reportedly investigating potential AML violations by Deutsche Bank, a U.K. court could order the British government to pay millions to compensate a blacklisted Iranian bank, and more, in this midweek roundup.
The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday approved legislation that would limit White House-granted waivers to nations that purchase oil from Iran under a 2011 sanctions law.
A U.S. official's threat last month of economic sanctions against four Chinese banks is likely to be toothless given economic and enforcement hurdles, say sanctions analysts.
U.S. officials have secretly solicited and, at times, received data from foreign banks on accounts tied to Iranian entities, without notifying the accountholders of the requests, say sources.
The Iran sanctions proposal under consideration at the United Nations could result in international financial institutions broadly dropping their ties to Iran's banking industry, say analysts.
The U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted four companies and one person tied to Iran's elite military branch Wednesday amid efforts to coalesce international support to restrict business with the Persian country.
Compliance officers at some of the world's largest financial institutions are concluding they need to create sanctions-specific programs to avoid regulatory penalties and tarnished reputations, according to a Deloitte survey released Monday.
The result of presidential elections this month in Iran could have a "huge" impact on whether the United States pushes to impose new economic sanctions against Iran, say analysts.
The U.S. Senate banking committee approved a bill that would ratchet up economic pressure on Iran and increase the budgets of two government agencies that enforce sanctions and counter-terrorist financing regulations.
The U.K. and the European Union will freeze the assets of Iran's largest bank, Bank Melli, over Iran's alleged plans to build a nuclear weapons program, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today during a joint press conference with President George Bush.
The bank, which is based in London, expects to reach a "resolution" with the U.S. Justice Department, U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control and New York District Attorneys office, Lloyd's said in a statement Friday.
The U.N. Security Council voted a third round of sanctions against Iran over its alleged ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. Fourteen of the 15 members of the Security Council supported a measure calling for tighter monitoring of Iranian financial institutions, travel bans, and cargo inspections.