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From The Editor: U.N.’s Brewer Says He’s Counting on You to Make Iran Sanctions Work
printIt's not a new message, but the world's governments are counting on the private sector to make sanctions against Iran (and other countries) work. "We have engaged in a series of meetings with the private sector because the private sector is clearly one of the keys," said Jonathan Brewer, member of the U.N. Panel of Experts, at the 8th Annual ACAMS Anti-Money Laundering Conference in Amsterdam last week. "As one member state put it, the private sector is at the frontline of sanctions implementation," Brewer said, during the conference's last session, "Maintaining an Effective Sanctions Programme." Sadly, at least from...
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There are all those sayings about how the optimist and the pessimist encounter the world, starting with the old "glass half-full or half-empty" adage. The 33rd Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime offered fodder aplenty for both world views earlier this month in the United Kingdom.
Maybe it's the thing you're supposed to say when you get a new job and have responsibility for a lot of people. Still, it was a good thing to hear from FinCEN's new director in her debut speech at a D.C. money laundering conference.
Additional banking and trade restrictions that target the finance and supply of Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs were passed by the U.N. Security Council Wednesday.
The Iran sanctions proposal under consideration at the United Nations could result in international financial institutions broadly dropping their ties to Iran's banking industry, say analysts.
A United Nations report that Iran has slowed uranium production and cooperated with some inspections of a nuclear site will do little to dissuade proponents of sanctioning the country, according to a former U.N. inspector.
The U.N. Security Council voted a third round of sanctions against Iran over its alleged ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. Fourteen of the 15 members of the Security Council supported a measure calling for tighter monitoring of Iranian financial institutions, travel bans, and cargo inspections.
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.
Over the past nine months U.S. officials have met with more than 40 banks to push for stronger international sanctions against Iran.
The measure, which names Bank Sepah a financial supporter of illicit weapons proliferation, has the added force of following a U.N. resolution against Iran. That elevates the pressure U.S. allies to follow suit.
The sanctions put pressure on U.S. banks to conduct greater due diligence on correspondent accounts to determine if they are linked to the Middle Eastern nation. That will likely continue a trend of foreign institutions dropping business dealings with the country.