The United States should more frequently blacklist foreign financial institutions that flout American sanctions barring Iranian oil sales, a lawmaker said Tuesday.
The authors of a U.S. embargo against Iran's central bank and petroleum industry called on the White House Thursday to be strict with foreign financial institutions under the law's statutes.
A U.S. official's threat last month of economic sanctions against four Chinese banks is likely to be toothless given economic and enforcement hurdles, say sanctions analysts.
The Senate Thursday named David Cohen the nation's top sanctions official after legislators agreed to end a standoff over the U.S. Treasury Department's implementation of financial measures aimed at Iran.
A congressional measure aimed at Iran could spell new compliance duties for U.S. financial institutions, including requiring banks to certify that their correspondent institutions don't maintain accounts for blacklisted Iranians.
The United States will sanction Turkish and Venezuelan banks as early as next week for knowingly processing transactions tied to designated Iranian entities, according to individuals familiar with the matter.
A rift between seven Republican lawmakers and the U.S. Treasury Department over financial regulations aimed at Iran is likely to delay the nomination of a new federal counterterrorism chief, say former congressional staffers.
Recent congressional disclosures and leaked diplomatic cables highlight the difficulties the United States faces in convincing even stalwart allies to enforce economic sanctions against Iran, say analysts.
The Council of the European Union agreed Monday to implement economic sanctions against Iran, including prohibitions on transactions involving Iranian banks and energy companies.
Lawmakers passed a tough new sanctions measure against Iran Thursday that would require U.S. banks to determine whether the foreign financial institutions they have correspondent relationships with bank certain Iranians.
The U.S. Senate won't consider an Iran sanctions bill overwhelmingly approved by the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday until a negotiation deadline set by the Obama administration expires, say analysts.
The head of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee will soon introduce a bill to broaden sanctions against financial institutions and other businesses tied to Iran and the country's nuclear ambitions.
UK-based institutions Barclays PLC and Lloyds TSB Bank both said last month that they were being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control for possible violations of sanctions against state sponsors of terror.
Economic sanctions targeting Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons might not be achieving U.S. objectives and should be reconsidered, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in an audit report.