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Receiving Wide Coverage ...StanChart Settles: Standard Chartered agreed to pay $340 million to settle Benjamin Lawsky's money-laundering charges, but it's unclear how far the U.K. bank actually budged from its initial position that most of the allegedly illegal transactions were kosher. "The parties have agreed that the conduct at issue involved transactions of at least $250 billion," according to the official statement from Lawsky's New York State Department of Financial Services. This sounds to us like a prosecutor saying “the defendant admits that I have accused him of pouring tar into those 250 mailboxes” — a far cry from brandishing a confession to all 250 acts of vandalism. Remember, Standard Chartered had insisted last week that only $14 million of the transactions were improper. Well, press releases are seldom lucid, so let's go to the actual settlement document to find out whether StanChart really admitted any wrongdoing. … Oh wait, there isn't one. According to the Journal, "The settlement took the form of a term sheet signed by [StanChart's CEO] that spelled out the key points in the agreement, including the monetary penalty, said people familiar with the matter. Because the deal was struck so quickly, the final settlement agreement is yet to be drafted in its full legal format." So just like the national mortgage settlement, the full contents of this deal won't be available for a while. In the meantime the public must rely on whatever information the anonymice choose to leak to the media. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post
August 15 -
Britain's Standard Chartered Bank will pay $340 million to settle claims that it laundered hundreds of billions of dollars in illegal foreign transactions for Iran and other parties.
August 14
Royal Bank of Scotland Group is being probed by the Federal Reserve and Justice Department for potentially violating sanctions against Iran, two people briefed on the talks said.
The investigation was triggered after the bank disclosed information to the U.S. authorities following a review of the business Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester started after he joined the Edinburgh-based bank in 2008, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the probe isn't public. The Financial Times reported the negotiations earlier today.
RBS opened "discussions with U.K. and U.S. authorities to discuss its historical compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including U.S. economic sanctions," the bank said in an Aug. 3 filing that didn't mention the regulators or Iran. "Although the group cannot currently determine when the review of its operations will be completed or what the outcome of its discussions with U.K. and U.S. authorities will be, the investigation costs, remediation required or liability incurred could have a material adverse effect."
Standard Chartered Plc paid $340 million this month to New York's Department of Financial Services to settle claims it helped Iran launder about $250 billion in violation of federal laws. Regulators are investigating four European banks, including Deutsche Bank AG, for alleged violations involving oil trading and Iran, an attorney with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month.
Commerzbank AG said in 2010 that it was cooperating with U.S. authorities on an investigation of transactions involving Iran. Germany's second-biggest bank said at the time that it couldn't asses the outcome of the investigation or how much it might cost.
Benjamin Lawsky, the DFS superintendent who investigated London-based Standard Chartered, isn't looking into RBS, the people said. Barbara Hagenbaugh, a Fed spokeswoman, David Neustadt at the DFS and Gina Talamona, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, declined to comment. Sarah Small, an RBS spokeswoman, declined to comment beyond the bank's regulatory disclosure. Commerzbank spokesman Nils Happich declined to comment.
RBS and the Justice Department reached an agreement in 2010 to settle charges that ABN Amro Holding NV, the Dutch lender RBS acquired in 2007, conspired to defraud the U.S. by engaging in transactions with state sponsors of terrorism. The firm was subject to a deferred-prosecution agreement, which required a forfeiture of $500 million.
RBS fell 0.8 percent to 235.6 pence at the close in London trading. The shares have risen 17 percent this year after sliding 48 percent in 2011.
The U.K. rescued RBS at the height of the financial crisis, injecting 45.5 billion pounds ($72 billion) into the lender, making it the costliest bailout of any financial institution. RBS trades at a level equivalent to less than half the price at which the taxpayer bought its 82 percent stake in the bank.
