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.
Foreign financial institutions and other non-U.S. companies newly tasked with disclosing when their affiliates deal with Iranian government officials are finding the requirements onerous, according to compliance officers and consultants.
The government of Iran and banks under its influence are increasingly using investments in foreign financial institutions as a means to circumvent sanctions, including restrictions on interbank messages, say sources.
U.S. lawmakers and the White House are negotiating language in a defense budgetary bill that would potentially penalize foreign banks for not complying with American sanctions against Iran, according to a congressional source.
After a busy year for federal sanctions officials, large banks with international footprints are increasingly instituting deeper, standalone audits of their related policies and procedures, say compliance officers and consultants.
An American sanctions law passed in December is raising compliance concerns at banks involved in energy sector deals, despite U.S. waivers permitting related transactions, say attorneys and bank officials.
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress this week mulled imposing new financial and energy-related sanctions against Iran ahead of planned negotiations with Iranian officials later this month.
U.S. lawmakers will likely move to strengthen restrictions on correspondent accounts in the reconciled version of an Iran sanctions bill expected to pass the Senate by June, say congressional sources.
American sanctions enforcers will "primarily" focus in coming months on blacklisting Chinese firms that buy and resell defense industry or dual-use goods to Iran, a U.S. Justice Department official said Wednesday.
An executive order signed Sunday to implement new banking sanctions against Iran doesnt clarify the extent to which U.S. financial institutions must peel back transactions to discover potential links to Iran.
The Senate's banking committee Thursday approved sanctions aimed at Iranian officials, including provisions asking the world's largest interbank messaging consortium to shut out Iran's central bank.
The U.S. Treasury Department Monday sanctioned Iran's third largest bank hours after the European Union agreed to freeze the assets of the Middle Eastern nation's central bank.
U.S. and foreign banks are awaiting official guidance on how to adhere to a new American sanctions law against the Central Bank of Iran before implementing its screening procedures.
U.S. senators Monday approved a reconciled defense appropriations bill that would sanction Iran's central bank, making only a single nod to White House concerns that the bill would displease trade partners.