RBS to pay $100 million to settle U.S. sanctions allegations

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND GROUP will pay $100 million to settle a case in which U.S. and New York regulators allege the bank hid or failed to disclose information regarding the identities of sanctioned parties in 3,500 transactions with Iran, Sudan, Burma and Cuba. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/SIMON DAWSON
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND GROUP will pay $100 million to settle a case in which U.S. and New York regulators allege the bank hid or failed to disclose information regarding the identities of sanctioned parties in 3,500 transactions with Iran, Sudan, Burma and Cuba. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/SIMON DAWSON

NEW YORK – Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC will pay $100 million to settle U.S. and New York regulators’ allegations that it violated sanctions programs targeting Iran, Sudan, Burma and Cuba.

RBS hid or failed to disclose information regarding the identities of sanctioned parties in 3,500 transactions valued at approximately $523 million, the New York Department of Financial Services, one of the regulators involved in the settlement, said in a statement today.

RBS “deeply regrets” its oversight failures and pledges to strengthen compliance controls, the bank said in a separate statement.

The U.S. is cracking down on banks whose employees or executives hid information while processing transactions with parties based in sanctioned nations. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., HSBC Holdings PLC, Standard Chartered PLC and ING Bank NV also have settled allegations that they failed to give the U.S. details of financial transactions related to Iran.

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The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Federal Reserve were also part of the RBS settlement.

“We remain resolute in enforcing our comprehensive sanctions against Iran, and we will continue to take aggressive action against those who would flout our law,” said David Cohen, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at Treasury.

Benjamin Lawsky, New York’s top banking regulator, said that RBS terminated several employees involved in the misconduct.

“If we truly want to deter future wrongdoing, we should move increasingly toward exposing individual misconduct and holding individuals accountable,” he said in a statement.

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