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British Bank Denies Laundering Iranian Money; Say It's Not A 'Rogue Institution'

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

As its stock tumbled today following word that New York State regulators have labeled it a "rogue institution" that allegedly hid about 60,000 secret transactions involving $250 billion in Iranian funds, Britain's Standard Chartered Bank strongly denied the accusations.

It "rejects the position or portrayal of facts as set out in the order," the bank said.

As NPR's Jim Zarroli said on Morning Edition, New York State's Department of Financial Services on Monday said that Standard Chartered had "for almost 10 years ... schemed with the government of Iran and hid from regulators roughly 60,000 secret transactions, involving at least $250 billion." The actions, from January 2001 through 2007, happened at a time when Iranian financial institutions were "subject to U.S. economic sanctions," the regulators noted.

The bank, however, "said the order issued by the US regulator did not present 'a full and accurate picture of the facts,' " the BBC reports. According to the BBC:

"It said that it had conducted a review of its transactions, primarily those relating to Iran for the period between 2001 to 2007, and had given regular updates to the US authorities on the results of the investigation.

" 'As we have disclosed to the authorities, well over 99.9% of the transactions relating to Iran complied with U-turn regulations,' the bank said.

" 'The total value of transactions which did not follow the U-turn was under $14m.'

"The so-called U-turn transactions are those started outside the US by non-Iranian foreign banks that pass through the U.S. financial system on the way to other non-Iranian foreign banks."

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Source: NPR

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Comments [2]

Mark

Woah, wait a minute.. where did these bank regulators come from? You mean we have those in this country? Who knew!

Aug. 07 2012 06:17 PM
Neil from Austin

About the only thing that we can agree on in America these days in support for Israel and, its corollary, isolating and demonizing Iran. The energy and resources focused on Iran, should be focused on problems closer to home. We have so many challenges to deal with in this country, but we devote so much to preventing Iran from using the international financial system, which is a dubious goal to begin with.

Aug. 07 2012 03:31 PM

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