The Latvian financial services regulator (the FKTK) has fined SEB Bank €1.8 million, of which €1,121,140 related to shortcomings in the bank’s sanctions compliance.
The inspections leading to the fine had taken place in 2017 and 2018.
The failings are said to have been specific to the EU’s Russian sanctions in regulation 269/2014 (as amended).
The fine was stated to be for not screening for companies and other assets owned by designated persons.
It has been reported today that the Latvian authorities have placed a block on the broadcasts of nine Russian television stations owned by a designated person under the EU’s sanctions.
The stations are owned by Yury Kovalchuk.
The Rotterdam District Court has convicted an individual for the financial transfer of €471 in breach of the EU’s sanctions against ISIS.
In light of other offences, the man was sentenced to 18 months in jail, with 6 months conditional and a probation period of 3 years.
The District Court of Rotterdam has imposed a two-month suspended sentence on an individual for the transfer of €200 to his brother.
The brother was fighting for ISIS in Syria and so the transfer was in breach of EU sanctions.
The Rotterdam District Court has heard an appeal against fines imposed by the Dutch National Bank on a trust office.
The fines were of €593,750 and €10,000.
Some aspects of the appeal were upheld and the fines were reduced, but the court agreed with the KYC failings (including related to sanctions screening) and imposed revised fines of €534,375 and €9,000.
OFSI has released its Annual Report for 2018-2019.
In it OFSI reports that it received 99 reports of suspected sanctions breaches with a value of £262 million.
OFSI has today imposed a fine of £146,341 against Telia Carrier UK Limited for breaches of the EU’s Syrian sanctions.
The breaches arose out of Telia facilitating telephone calls for SyriaTel which is a designated person under the EU sanctions. The phone connections were treated as “economic resources” for the purposes of the sanctions.
The fine in this instance was reduced from £300,000 after Telia opted to seek a ministerial review of OFSI’s penalty.
The Dutch authorities have obtained a further conviction for transfers of small sums of money in breach of the EU’s ISIS sanctions.
The transfers in this instance were of €500 and €950.
The man was given a suspended 5 month sentence with a 2 year probation period.
The Luxembourg financial services regulator, the CSSF, has today fined Banque Puilaetco Dewaay Luxembourg SA €15,000 for AML and sanctions compliance failings.
The penalty notice noted that the failing was “a temporary deficiency of the ongoing screening system of the client database against sanction lists”, and noted that the deficiency had since been remediated.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has issued a Decision Notice against Standard Chartered Bank including a fine of £102,163,200.
The fine related to KYC failings in general, with a focus on failure to conduct customer due diligence even in situations where sanctions red flags were evident. The FCA noted a lack of financial crime risk, and concerns as to the quality of the advice being given.
A particular focus were the UAE branches of the bank, and also export financing in relation to the export of military goods.
