Netherlands – fine and custodial sentence imposed for breach of Iran sanctions.

The District Court of East Brabant has convicted an individual for breaches of the EU’s Iran sanctions.

The defendant had traded for 2 years with a designated Iranian entity. The unspecified goods had been shipped via intermediary countries Turkey and Dubai.

He was sentenced to 16 months in jail, with a further 4 months suspended subject to a two-year probation period. He was also fined €500,000. The fine was on the individual personally and not on the company through which he traded.

 

Latvia – two further banks fined by regulator for North Korean sanctions failings

The Latvian Finance and Capital Markets Commission has today announced a fine of €1.3 million against Norvik Banka and of €1.56 million against Rietumu Banka in relation to transactions related to circumvention of North Korean sanctions between 2013 and 2014 and 2009 and 2015 respectively.

Both banks have cooperated with the FCMC and have undertaken as part of administrative agreements to improve their internal compliance functions.

Latvia – three banks fined by regulator for sanctions and AML failings

On June 27, 2017, the Latvian Financial and Capital Market Commission entered into administrative agreements with three different Latvian Banks for failings related to breaches of North Korean sanctions. Each of the banks cooperated with the investigations.

JSC Baltikums Bank and JSC PrivatBank were each fined €35,575 for “weaknesses in customer due diligence and transaction monitoring that led to the situation that bank had been used to circumvent international sanctions requirements imposed against North Korea”.

JSC Reģionālā investiciju Banka, was fined €570,364, for the same failings, but also for “failure to ensure effective functioning of internal control system”. To remedy this, the bank was undertaken to invest €2.8 million on “the improvement of its internal control system in 2017/2018”.

In addition official warnings were issued to those at the bank responsible for AML and CTF controls. The bank also undertook to “assess its AML/CTF internal control system and take the necessary measures to improve its functioning and effectiveness in line with the action plan, to perform external testing on the categorization of customer base and IT solutions, as well as assess the risks associated with cross-border enforcement of sanctions”.

Netherlands – 19 year jail term imposed on appeal

The Court of Appeal in Hertogenbosch has upheld and extended the conviction and sentence imposed on an individual for breaches of the EU’s Liberian sanctions.

Amongst other offences, the defendant had supplied arms and munitions to the government of Charles Taylor in breach of sanctions.

At first instance he had been acquitted of some charges and sentenced to 8 years in jail. Both the defendant and the public prosecutor appealed.

On appeal all charges were found proven and a sentence of 19 years was imposed.

Netherlands – Dutch National Bank’s fine of trust office upheld on appeal

The District Court of Rotterdam has dismissed an appeal by a trust office against a penalty imposed by the Dutch National Bank.

The penalty was imposed for KYC failings by the trust office specifically in the context of sanctions screening and compliance, including insufficient investigation of the origin of the assets within certain trusts.

The size of the fine is not mentioned in the appeal judgment.

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The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and are not to be construed as legal advice.

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