One of the United Kingdom's largest banks has agreed to pay nearly $300 million to settle charges with U.S. and New York authorities that it stripped payment information from wire transactions to do business with countries on U.S. sanctions lists, according to court documents released Monday.
An expected fine for Barclays Plc totaling at least $300 million is tied to the bank's removal of data on wires involving Iran, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The chief investigator of sanctions violations at Lloyds TSB Bank and Credit Suisse speaks with Editor-in-Chief Kieran Beer about the unprecedented penalties and the need for federal beneficial ownership legislation.
Credit Suisse AG will pay $536 million as part of an agreement to settle charges that it provided banking services to entities that were the subject of U.S. economic sanctions, according to a statement released by the bank today.
The U.S. Justice Department is planning to appeal a judge's ruling that it does not have the jurisdiction to sue two European banks it believes helped launder nearly $300 million tied to a massive securities fraud.
A federal court ruling dismissing a $300 million U.S. lawsuit against two European banks may limit how the United States enforces its anti-money laundering laws abroad, say former investigators.
With the growth in the number of individuals and organizations economically sanctioned globally, financial institutions face a big challenge making sure they don't violate the law. But tough times may make it harder for compliance officers to do their jobs, say Stephen Beattie of Ernst & Young.
Lloyds TSB Bank Plc. has agreed to pay the United States $350 million to settle charges that it hid wire transfers with blacklisted companies, the largest sanctions-related penalty to date.
A London-based bank has forced the closure of accounts for an Islamic charity it believes has ties to Hamas, a Palestinian organization sanctioned internationally for terrorism, the charity disclosed this week.
The Southern District of New York collected over 52 percent less in asset forfeitures in fiscal year 2008 than it did in the previous year, the agency said Thursday.
Misconceptions have often fueled the debate on how to stop terrorist financiers since the attacks of September 11, 2001, according to Ibrahim Warde, a professor at Tufts University in Boston. Warde talked with reporter Brian Orsak about what misinformation has cost financial services .
A U.K. court of appeals said that the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran should be removed from a British terror watch list.
Iran is considering purchasing at least one of three Venezuelan banks to circumvent international sanctions requiring many of the world's banks to freeze the funds of five Iranian financial institutions, according to anti-money laundering consultants and Iranian news reports cited by the BBC.
The Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said Thursday that it is "particularly concern" that Iran's Bank Markazi is facilitating transactions for Iranian commercial banks that have been blacklisted by the United States.
UK-based institutions Barclays PLC and Lloyds TSB Bank both said last month that they were being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control for possible violations of sanctions against state sponsors of terror.
As more mainstream banking channels are closed off to Iran, its businesses have turned to smaller, more obscure financial providers beyond the reach of U.S. jurisdiction and influence. That has resulted in higher compliance costs for financial institutions with a presence in the United States.
The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said Thursday that the global financial community should regard transactions involving Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Northern Cyprus and São Tomé and Príncipe as high risks for money laundering.
An international anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing watchdog is considering whether to take action against Iran for weaknesses identified in the country's AML laws.
The sanctions would call for increased international scrutiny of transactions with Iran's largest banks, including their international subsidiaries, and the freezing of assets of individuals tied to the country's purported nuclear weapons program.
Economic sanctions targeting Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons might not be achieving U.S. objectives and should be reconsidered, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in an audit report.