On Monday, Societe Generale, the French banking giant, will pay $1.4 billion to the federal and state authorities of US for resolving all the pending legal disputes.
The bank will pay $1.34 billion for settling investigations that are carried out in handling of its dollar transactions which are in violation of the sanctions placed against Cuba and other countries by US. The rest $95 million will be paid for settling disputes regarding anti-money laundering regulations violation.
SocGen is being dogged by several costly legal disputes for more than a year. Before these two cases, SocGen settled another dispute regarding dollar transfers subject to economic sanctions by US. Frederic Oudea, the Chief executive of SocGen, said that they regret and acknowledge the shortcomings of the identified settlements and will cooperate with the authorities for resolving the matter. He added,
These resolutions, following on the heels of the resolution of other investigations earlier this year, allow the Bank to close a chapter on our most important historical disputes.
The bank has executed billions of dollars illegally from 2003-2013 to parties which were subject to embargoes and sanctions by the US including Sudan, Iran, Libya and Cuba. The departments that issued fine included U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Reserve, the New York County District Attorney’s Office, the New York Department of Financial Services and the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
As per the Manhattan U.S. Attorney office, $1.34 billion is the second largest penalty that is imposed for violation of U.S. sanctions on a bank. Before this, BNO Paribas, SocGen’s rival, paid $8.9 billion in 2015 for settling dispute regarding violation of sanctions.
Further, deferred prosecution agreements are signed by SocGen that will protect the bank from being prosecuted if it abides by all the terms and three year’s probation period will be granted.
Source: Reuters, Free America Network
