Bloomberg узнал о проверке Credit Suisse насчет россиян под санкциями

Swiss banks Credit Suisse and UBS were included in the list of banks that the US Department of Justice decided to check to see if they helped Russian businessmen circumvent sanctions, Bloomberg reports citing sources.

According to the interlocutors of the agency, requests for information were sent to banks, this happened before UBS bought Credit Suisse. In addition to them, subpoenas were also sent to employees of some large American banks, two Bloomberg interlocutors said.

As one of the sources explained, the Ministry of Justice intends to identify bank employees who worked with clients under sanctions, and how these clients were checked over the past few years. Bank employees can then be checked for violations.

Banks face severe penalties for violating U.S. sanctions. Bloomberg recalls that in 2014 the French BNP Paribas had to pay $9 billion for deals with organizations from Sudan, Iran and Cuba. In 2019, the British Standard Chartered paid $1.1 billion to settle charges of violating Iran sanctions.

In early February, Credit Suisse announced that it had frozen Russian assets totaling 17.6 billion Swiss francs (about $19 billion) as part of sanctions against Moscow over the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.

On March 19, UBS, Switzerland's second-largest bank, bought its rival Credit Suisse, which had been struggling in recent months and saw an increase in the exodus of depositors in March. The transaction amount is 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion), which amounted to only 40.5% of the already collapsed market capitalization of Credit Suisse in the auction on the eve of the transaction. The deal itself will not be cash, UBS will pay with its shares.

Prior to this, in mid-February, Bloomberg learned that in three weeks of 2023, the US financial crime enforcement agency FinCEN received more than 100 reports from whistleblowers, some of which are related to the possible circumvention of sanctions against RUSSIA by banks. The same number of applications were received by FinCEN in the previous two years. At the same time, the increase in the number of appeals may be due to the fact that whistleblowers have the opportunity to receive remuneration (from 10 to 30% of the fine) for the data provided, the agency noted.

Last spring, the US Department of Justice announced the creation of a multi-agency task force, KleptoCapture, tasked with enforcing sanctions and EXPORT restrictions against Russia, as well as combating "Russian oligarchs." The group is investigating ways to circumvent the restrictive measures and anti-money laundering laws of the United States and is searching for their assets. In particular, she checks the legitimacy of the transactions of auction houses that sold paintings to Russian and Ukrainian businessmen.