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For nearly 20 years, U.S. sanctions have stymied Sudan's economic growth while doing little to stop savvy bankers from doing business in the country, according to Bader Eldin Mahmmoud Abbas Mukhtar, the country's minister of finance and national economy.
This time last December, one might reasonably have expected that 2014 would be a year of modest changes for the anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance sector. Then came JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas and a convoy of Russian tanks to quash that notion.
Reports that Benjamin Lawsky will step down early next year as superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services highlight how time can paradoxically seem to pass both quickly and slowly, almost simultaneously.
With the ink hardly dry on BNP Paribas' guilty pleas, U.S. officials are looking into "a fair amount of conduct" by other financial institutions that could result in formal charges, according to Douglas Leff, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's New York field office.
BNP Paribas pleaded guilty and agreed to pay nearly $9 billion to settle charges that it knowingly violated U.S. sanctions against four nations despite previous warnings from American officials.
As U.S. officials and bankers debate the merits and drawbacks of an expected $10 billion sanctions settlement with BNP Paribas, their French counterparts are offering a more unified response: outrage.
Beleaguered bank BNP Paribas SA will move several top compliance positions to New York City in a bid to please the U.S. Justice Department and American regulators preparing to fine the institution.
Ongoing negotiations between U.S. officials and France's largest bank that could result in a monetary settlement of more than $1 billion involve violations of sanctions against Iran and Sudan, say sources.
The U.S. Treasury Department Thursday will lift economic restrictions against Sudan that have hampered the growth of the Republic of South Sudan's oil sector and the role of banks in the region.
Eager to lure new foreign investments, the world's newest nation still faces an uphill battle against the economic sanctions it technically freed itself from in July, say analysts.
Any changes to U.S. economic sanctions policies on Sudan and Myanmar will be slow moving, if they occur at all, despite recent diplomatic overtures and speculation, say analysts.
