Germany's largest bank Wednesday agreed to pay U.S. state and federal regulators $258 million to resolve allegations that its Manhattan branch knowingly processed billions of dollars of banned transactions.
France's largest retail bank will pay $787 million to U.S. authorities and fire one employee to avoid criminal and civil charges that it violated economic sanctions and state recordkeeping rules.
Germany's second-largest bank will pay $1.45 billion to U.S. law enforcement agencies and regulators and fire multiple employees to settle charges that it violated sanctions laws and anti-money laundering rules.
Citigroup has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury Department $218,000 for processing export bill collection applications linked to Iran and failing to identify suspicious parties with its sanctions software system.
Despite tightened controls on interbank messaging, some bankers looking to hide the role of their blacklisted clients in international wires need only type a single key on their keyboard, according to experts.
High-profile sanctions cases are spurring large banks and third-party software vendors to improve how they identify when counterparts and clients secretly act on behalf of blacklisted entities, say compliance experts.
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