News
U.S. Makes First Use of Power to Penalize for Large Transactions with Iran’s Central Bank
By Colby Adams
printFor the first time, U.S. officials have blacklisted a foreign financial institution using a July 2012 executive order that prohibits significant transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. The U.S. Treasury Department said Friday that it had designated Asia Bank, an Iranian-owned financial institution headquartered in Moscow, for providing material support and over $13 million in U.S. bank notes to Iran. The bank also sought correspondent accounts with two blacklisted institutions: Export Development Bank of Iran and Bank Tejarat, officials said. The blacklisting of Asia Bank, announced along with the designations of over 25 individuals and companies alleged to have...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
Sometimes a decline in bank enforcement actions isn't a good thing, even for bankers. Such is the takeaway of a review of enforcement action data spanning back five years, during which the number of formal Bank Secrecy Act penalties fell nearly 20 percent while fines and regulatory demands grew.
For the fourth time this year, U.S. officials blacklisted an Iranian national using a Caribbean passport while purportedly helping Iran circumvent sanctions.
American elections, EU court decisions and a potential wind-down of negotiations with Iran are complicating efforts by the United States and Europe to maintain uniformity in sanctions enforcement, say analysts.
European companies may be lining up at the gate to do business with Iran in the event of a sanctions rollback but don't expect the continent's banks to go rushing in anytime soon.
Even with limited sanctions relief from the United States, foreign banks have been reluctant to process transactions for Iran under the terms of a newly-extended multilateral accord, an American official said Tuesday.
As the Obama administration weighs punitive measures against Russia, part of its calculus will be the degree to which Russian officials can undermine U.S. national interests, including sanctions against Iran.
Governmental documents published Monday cleared the way for foreign financial institutions to process limited transactions for Iranians but U.S. banks will be unlikely to relax their sanctions policies, according to experts.
As early as Monday, banks will be able to do what has become seemingly unthinkable in the sanctions compliance field during recent years: ramp up their ties to Iran.
Western financial institutions won't radically amend their sanctions controls in response to an agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for a relaxation of banking restrictions, say former officials.
Lawmakers should press ahead with Iran sanctions bills despite pressure to put off new restrictions while American and Iranian officials hold nuclear talks, according to David Ibsen, executive director of United Against Nuclear Iran.
U.S. lawmakers will seek to advance a bill next week that would impose sanctions against companies that trade with Iran unless they agree to reduce their ties to the country within 180 days.
The U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions arm is gearing up to blacklist financial institutions secretly acting on behalf of Iran in an effort to bypass economic prohibitions, the agency's director said Wednesday.