Standard Chartered Bank PLC branch in Hong Kong
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Recent documents filed in US Federal Court allege that a major British bank… Standard Chartered It helped finance sanctioned Iranian terrorist entities and groups, and US authorities have ignored this relevant evidence.
London-based Standard Chartered Bank, which mainly serves clients in emerging markets, was previously fined more than $1.7 billion after admitting in 2012 and 2019 to violating sanctions imposed on Iran and other blacklisted countries.
The bank denies conducting transactions for the benefit of any organizations classified as terrorist.
The latest court filings, filed by former Standard Chartered employee turned whistleblower Julian Knight, allege that US officials lied when they denied he had provided them with evidence of much greater wrongdoing by the bank. Knight claimed that officials then filed a motion to dismiss the whistleblower case against the bank as “baseless” in 2019 in order to protect it. He has now asked a US federal court in New York to reinstate the case.
Knight, who led Standard Chartered's transaction services unit between 2009 and 2011, was one of the whistleblowers who provided US investigators with confidential banking data in 2012 and 2013. And statements documenting transactions that he says contain evidence of further sanctions violations, including violations after 2007. When the bank said it stopped any dealings with Iran.
Knight's lawsuit alleges that the US government committed a “massive fraud” against the legal system by denying the provision of “overwhelming evidence” that Standard Chartered “facilitated several billion dollars in banking transactions for Iran and numerous international terrorist groups and frontiers.” companies for those groups,” according to a report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The court document says some of this evidence showed that the bank's clients included front companies for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Palestinian Hamas movement, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and entities linked to Iran in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Germany and other countries.
The two whistleblowers claimed that US authorities investigating Standard Chartered Bank “made false representations to the court in order to reject their (Knight and his colleague’s) claim for a whistleblower reward” in 2019, the BBC reported.
Relevant authorities, including an FBI agent, said the whistleblower's allegations “did not lead to the discovery of any new violations.” The court then dismissed the case as “baseless.” CNBC has contacted the US Department of Justice for comment.
The ICIJ report says Knight's latest claim alleges that the US government “lied that it conducted a 'lengthy, expensive and substantive investigation' into his claims or that it was 'fully aware' of the transactions he made” and simply lied to cover up and added: “The government's own statements support the scenario.” the last one”.
In response to CNBC's request for comment, a Standard Chartered spokesperson described Knight's court filing as “another attempt to use fabricated claims against the bank, following previous failed attempts” and said that “the false claims it supports have been completely discredited by the United States.” The authorities conducted a comprehensive investigation into these allegations and said they were “baseless” and did not show any violations of US sanctions.
