Banking: US fines Barclays for "stripping" in trade documents
The UK's Barclay's Bank is the latest bank to be settle US action against it for conducting business contrary to US sanctions.
The deal, another plea bargain involving US authorities, involves the bank paying two separate sums. Technically, neither are fines: the actions by the Department of Justice and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office will be either dismissed or "deferred" upon payment of a sum. The usual formula is that the bank will "neither admit nor deny the allegations."
The bank will pay USD149 million to settle each of the actions if the Court approves the settlement in Washington DC later today.
Barclays reportedly watched the case involving Lloyds TSB which had falsified information in trade payments documents so as to obscure the origin and destination of products and funds where the USA had imposed unilateral sanctions. Having seen the result of the Lloyds TSB case, which produced significantly higher settlement figures, Barclays apparently turned itself in.
Final details have yet to be released and more are expected after the Judge gives his ruling but the conduct of criminal investigations in the USA tends to involve a trial by media so as to contaminate public opinion and engender outrage prior to a trial so as to increase pressure on defendants. It has been reported that Barclays took part in dealings in US dollars (and therefore via the correspondent banking network) involving Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Myanmar all of which the USA maintains brutal sanctions against, far outweighing the sanctions imposed by other countries.
Indeed, the Financial Action Task Force removed Myanmar from its NCCT list more than four years ago, the last country then present on the list. However, the USA has maintained the listing of "Burma" as it insists on calling it, as a country "of primary money laundering concern" under the USA PATRIOT Act.
Sudan, Libya and Cuba remain listed by the USA as "state sponsors of terrorism" - even though much of the rest of the world takes a different view.
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