Barclays Bank pays for sanctions violations with $ 298 million

The United States holds major sway on the world stage. International finance is surely an area where the nation has some power, which is why charges were brought against England’s Barclays Bank so effortlessly. Sanctions were made from the U.S. to Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma which were allegedly broken by Barclays between March 1995 and September 2006, reports the Washington Post. Banks in the enemy nations received more than $ 500 million from Barclays which had to be cleared through the New York branch. As outlined by Reuters, a $ 298 million settlement to U.S. criminal charges was agreed to be paid by Barclays Bank already because this happened.

Prosecutors believe Barclays was trying to conceal the truth

Barclays documents filed in the U.S. omitted the names of banks in those sanctioned countries. To make the connection to the other countries obscure, payments went through internal accounts. Counts against Barclays Bank contain violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and trading with the enemy, as outlined by Jennifer Calvery, chief of the U.S. Justice Department’s asset forfeiture and money-laundering division.

Cuba has had U.S. sanctions against them since Kennedy although the others came later like Libya in 1986, Iran in 1995, Sudan and Burma in 1997.

Barclays makes clear what some transactions were

Barclays Bank decided it was better to just cooperate and give U.S. government investigators all the documents related to the case. The documents have not been given to the U.S. completely. The $ 298 million settlement breaks down into $ 149 million up front to the U.S. government and one more $ 149 million via a deferred agreement to be distributed at a later time.

Americans violate human rights in the exact same way

The past has shown Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma all having human rights violations against them in history. Barclays isn’t really the only company making the mistake of going through U.S. soil to give U.S. enemies support and money. The United States likes to make things happen the way they’ve planned. As The Decemberists’ song “Sixteen Military Wives” puts it,

Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so!

Find more information on this subject

Reuters

reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67F36J20100816?utm_source=feedburner and amp;utm_medium=feed and amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29

Washington Post

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/16/AR2010081602955.html

Barclays was previously fined £ 2.45 million ($ 3.8 million) for “poor reporting systems”

youtube.com/watch?v=zqsf3XswX4Q