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Lloyds, Bank of Cyprus Cases Highlight Correspondent Banking Issues
By Brian Monroe and Brian Orsak
printWhen reports surfaced in the spring of 2001 that publicly traded software company AremisSoft had inflated its earnings to boost its stock price, the case looked like a straightforward, open-and-shut securities fraud involving the company and some of its principles. The next year, the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission brought charges against the company that resulted in a $500 million settlement. By then, the Nasdaq had delisted AremisSoft and a federal grand jury had indicted the co-chief executive officers, Roys Poyiadjis and Lycourgos Kyprianou, for securities fraud. But the widening case resurfaced Monday when U.S. prosecutors in the Southern District of...
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Lloyds and the Bank of Cyprus are subject to U.S. jurisdiction because Title 18 USC 1956 (b) grants such extraterritorial reach to U.S. courts and because both signed "Consent of Jurisdiction" letters in order to do business in the U.S., according to the Justice Department.
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