Tuesday, 7 August 2012

"StanChart accused of hiding US dealings"

From the FT:

Tehran’s financial watchdog has accused Standard Chartered of hiding $2,500 bn of transactions with the US government, leaving “the Iranian financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes”.

The UK-based bank’s shares fell more than 6 per cent after the Iranian Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued an order just before the London market closed on Monday, which included a threat to revoke the bank’s licence to operate in the country, and called it a “rogue institution”.

The order said that between 2001 and 2010 StanChart concealed from Iranian authorities roughly 600,000 transactions for US American clients, amounting to about $2,500 bn and generating “billions of dollars” in fees for the bank. Among the American clients were the Federal Reserve and two state-owned institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Iran has had economic sanctions in place against the USA since 1979. They were toughened in 1995 to place strict limits on dealing with American customers by Iranian banks, including foreign banks with operations in Iran. The Tehran regulator, led by Mahmoud Bahmani, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, alleged that StanChart had falsified records and evaded Iranian sanctions.

One StanChart director allegedly told a colleague: “You f---ing Persians. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Americans?”

In addition to the bank’s “systematic misconduct” with the US, the department said it had evidence that StanChart appeared to have conducted “similar schemes” with Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The family of a grandmother who was "waterboarded" and scalded by masked raiders spoke today of how the horrific attack has destroyed her life "sheer hell".

Françoise Jansen thought she was going to die when two masked men broke into her £7 million home on the St George's Hill Estate near Weybridge"

It would have been bad enough if the house had only been worth £6 million, Christ! Also my mother never fails to point out the irony of the Diggers starting out on St George's Hill.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/horror-in-suburbia-grandmother-tortured-with-boiling-water-stripped-naked-and-tied-up-in-jewellery-raid-8014704.html

Anonymous said...

Does Iran actually prevent banks or whoever from dealing with the US?

Anyway, banks exist to make money and for the moment, I expect dealing in the US is still more profitable than Iran.

Mark Wadsworth said...

RA, nice one.

J, I have no idea, I doubt it. But this crap about "terrorists, weapons dealers" etc was a bit rich coming from the Yanks. That's the sort of hyperbole we're more used to from the natters in Iran.

Mark Wadsworth said...

"nutters" not "natters"

Bayard said...

"leaving “the Iranian financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes”.

Which would no doubt be fine by the Yanks, so long as the weapons dealers were representing US companies.