Standard Chartered: British bank accused of scheming with Iran to launder billions

[Mark Stapleton]

My sentiments exactly.

How dare the US prohibit the world from dealing with Iran, just to satisfy Zionist hatred.

Compared to the US and Israel, the Iranian Government is a model global citizen. And the impact of sanctions and financial banishment is borne by millions of innocent Iranians.

Try sending money to Cuba and it not getting confiscated by the US banking system. Even if you use an Australian bank direct to Cuba.

So?

Are you implying Zionist sanctions and isolation of Iran are OK?

What did Iran do to deserve this?

How the fuck do you come up with that assumption Mark? It is really quite clear and unambiguous. Every time I or some one I know has tried to use the banking system to send money to Cuba the money has disappeared. It has been confiscated by the US Treasury. This is despite not using any US banks. It means bankers are bastards and US bankers are bastards. What the fuck is not to understand? I thought every one knew bankers were bastards and I thought every knew that the US thinks they own the bloody world. I've never known people to have trouble sending money to Iran. Although that may change given the new sanctions against Iran like Cuba has had to live with since 1962 or so. Sanctions are not okay against Iran or Cuba or any other peaceful country. There should be sanctions against the US.

I sympathise with your frustration with sending money to Cuba but this thread is about US regulators enforcing financial sanctions on Iran. Also, the war crazy Israeli regime isn't baying for war with Cuba. They are demanding a military attack on Iran, Magda.

As you know, American interference in Iran has a history. The USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian passenger plane in 1988 killing all on board. That plane was flying in Iranian airspace. The hostage crisis in 1979 was manipulated to serve domestic American political interests and the CIA deposed Mossadegh and installed the Shah way back in 1953. So how long has America been causing trouble for Iran? Well, it begins around the same time Israel came into existence.

The demonizing of Iran in the western media and the economic sanctions designed to punish Iran have one source--Israel.

And what has Iran done to deserve this? Not a bloody thing.

[Mark Stapleton]

"Zionism" has fuck all to do with this.

Yes it does.

Zionism has everything to do with the sanctions on Iran.

And why do you write the word in inverted commas? Are you trying to infer it doesn't exist?

[Jan Klimkowski]

[the CIA deposed Mossadegh and installed the Shah way back in 1953.

And British elite, imperial, oil and banking interests had nothing to do with it?

Meanwhile Standard Chartered bank has always been closely associated with British royal interests. Did you consider that before delivering your typically tedious rant about "Zionism"?

I put "Zionism" in inserted commas because you use the phrase to describe some Freddie Kruger bogeyman responsible for every crime imaginable.

It's crass, reductive, nonsense.

[Mark Stapleton]

[the CIA deposed Mossadegh and installed the Shah way back in 1953.

And British elite, imperial, oil and banking interests had nothing to do with it?

Meanwhile Standard Chartered bank has always been closely associated with British royal interests. Did you consider that before delivering your typically tedious rant about "Zionism"?

I put "Zionism" in inserted commas because you use the phrase to describe some Freddie Kruger bogeyman responsible for every crime imaginable.

It's crass, reductive, nonsense.

Wow, you get nasty when you get caught out.

In any case, I notice you didn't try to deny that the isolation and planned military invasion of Iran serves the aspirations of Zionist Israel. No western country benefits from this. Just Israel.

Your comment that Zionism has fuck all to do with this was just plain dumb.

Is that tedious enough for you?

[Phil Dragoo]

In Conjuring Hitler by Guido Preparata is seen the Director of the Bank of England Montagu Norman arranged events during his tenure (1920-1944) in conjunction with the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Charter's CEO remark in re U.S.--tell it to Kennedy.

Safra went down to cleanse the palate for HSBC to gobble his Republic that week.

Russian mafia laundering.

And we are after Los Zetas for that.

Even while Obama-Holder arm Sinaloa--and had given Los Zetas immunity.

There is plenty of time for the plans within the plans.

Not for nothing Brzezinski-Gates CFR 2004 "Iran: Time for a New Approach"

The Arab Spring appears to be the latest removal of secular regime for Muslim Brotherhood--Hillary's Huma, Obama's line

China ups its Iran oil order.

These "Zionists" will be facing an Iranian bomb, by the design of U.S. foreign policy (the actions, not the words, of Obama-Clinton et al)

The laundering was going on before under another bank

It will go on again under another bank

There is no gambling in this casino

[Jan Klimkowski]

Wow, you get nasty when you get caught out.

"Caught out"?

No.

The only thing on display here is your Myopia.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Oh lookee here.

MSM promoting a blatant "Conspiracy Theory", that Wall Street is trying to undermine or even destroy the City of London:

City fears that Wall Street has the Square Mile in its sights

Behind shock accusations against Standard Chartered may lie a wider American financial agenda

Dominic Rushe in New York and Jill Treanor

The Observer, Sunday 12 August 2012


At mid-morning a text message interrupted Peter Sands on his Canadian holiday. The boss of Standard Chartered had just begun his summer break and was relaxing after presenting yet another set of record half-year profits to the City.

That an American regulator had accused the bank of breaching financial sanctions against Iran was a bolt from a blue. It was Monday and there were just minutes of trading left in London when the report, which claimed that the bank had helped Iranian clients avoid US sanctions in 60,000 transactions worth $250bn (£160bn), landed.

For several years Standard Chartered, a bank which had pulled through the financial crisis with a remarkably squeaky clean reputation, had been telling shareholders in its annual reports that it was "in discussions" with American regulators about "historic" sanction breaches. But the nature of the allegations made by the state of New York's department of financial services (DFS) were extraordinary.

Despite the tiny trading window, the bank's shares lost 6% of their value on Monday, and by Tuesday morning were in freefall, losing nearly a quarter of their value at one stage, as investors ditched the stock amid fears that the bank could lose its crucial banking licence in New York.

It is the latest sorry chapter in what has been a bad year for London's Square Mile, which is still digesting the record fine meted out to Barclays for attempting to rig Libor and the fulsome apology from HSBC, which admitted helping Mexican drug barons launder money.

Just a week ago Standard Chartered had boasted it was too "boring" for scandals and if evidence were needed that Sands, Standard's group chief executive, and his top managers were unaware of the ambitious New York regulator Benjamin Lawsky was preparing to land, it lay in the fact that it took them an agonising eight hours to respond. Standard Chartered insisted that 99.9% of its transactions had been lawful and apologised that just under 300, worth a total of $14m, had breached the rules.

Meanwhile investors used that time to pore over the report and it didn't look pretty, not least the tough talk attributed to a senior Standard Chartered executive who gave a New York colleague worried about sanctions busting, memorably short shrift: "You fucking Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians?"

It didn't take them long to figure out that the diatribe was supposed to have been uttered by Richard Meddings, now the bank's highly regarded finance director. The bank insists that the quotation is inaccurate.

By Tuesday, Sands was on an aircraft back to London, leaving his holiday with his in-laws and returning to the bank's head office to begin the fightback that is crucial not just to savage his own reputation but to help restore the battered fortunes of the City itself.

In New York, where the bank's chairman, Sir John Peace, had flown to meet the bank's lawyers, the episode is held up as yet another example of the City of London's rotten core. "It seems to be that every big trading disaster happens in London," US congresswoman Carolyn Maloney told the house financial services committee as it investigated JP Morgan's massive London losses earlier this summer.

Ironically, until the 2008 banking crisis, London was being held up by US politicians as a model of financial dynamism. "Go back to 2005, 2006 and London was the envy of New York," said Peter Henning, Wayne State University law professor. London had lighter regulation and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) was regarded as "toothless", a trait which Henning said was admired by Wall Street bankers.

Meanwhile, Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, and New York senator Charles Schumer were warning that the city was being "stifled by stringent regulations" brought in after the Enron scandal.

As Henning pointed out, much of the admitted and alleged misconduct at Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered happened during this envied period of "light-touch" regulation. "Well now I think we are probably seeing the consequences," he added.

With the City's regulatory framework being tightened by the coalition government, which is disbanding the FSA and handing control of bank oversight to the Bank of England, there is concern in London that the US politicians are being opportunistic.

As well as the DFS, Standard Chartered is in discussions with four other agencies, including the treasury department's office of foreign assets control, but it seems that Lawsky broke ranks without informing the other agencies .

Labour MP John Mann, no friend of the banking set, feared "an increasing anti-British bias by US regulators and politicians aimed at shifting financial markets from London to New York".

Even Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King waded in to say that the UK authorities hoped the various US regulatory bodies would work together while chancellor George Osborne sought assurances from US treasury secretary Tim Geithner that Standard Chartered would be treated fairly, given that US regulators usually work on settlements together.

"There's an election coming and Wall Street versus Main Street is very much going to be part of the debate," said James Cox, Duke University law professor. "It's far safer for a politician to pick on some foreign bank than it is to pick on Citigroup."

Washington is on holiday now, but before setting off for their summer homes, the politicians started preparations for what could be an autumn of British bank-bashing. Both the senate banking committee and the house financial services committee are looking into Libor. Barclays former boss Bob Diamond, who quit in the wake of the interest-rate rigging scandal, could be called to testify.

Lawsky's DFS does not take holidays and Standard Chartered has been summoned to a hearing at 10am in New York on Wednesday to explain why it should be allowed to keep its banking licence. Speculation was rife this weekend that the hearing could be postponed to allow the US regulators to work together to try and complete a joint settlement. Sands and the bank's lawyers will spend the weekend poring over the allegations, which they insist contain numerous factual inaccuracies.

Last week the measured Sands admitted the accusations had been "very damaging … we are going to have to work hard to restore the damage". At stake is not only his reputation but that of Meddings, the bank, and arguably the entire City.