New York’s banking regulator has demanded $300 million from Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ as part of a potential agreement over sanctions-related violations, according to people familiar with the matter.
The demand comes on top of a $250 million settlement Japan’s largest bank negotiated with the regulator last year for deleting information from $100 billion in wire transfers that authorities could have used to police transactions with Myanmar, Iran, Sudan and other entities subject to US sanctions.
The new penalty stems from the discovery after the June 2013 settlement that the bank had submitted a report that allegedly whitewashed a scheme to falsify transactions for entities subject to the sanctions.
Under sanctions, Iran’s black market for medicine grows IranSource by Saumaun Heiat
Hadiyeh, 4, an Iranian child who is affected by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), looks at her mother at Hazrate Ali Asghar Hospital, in Tehran, Iran September 27, 2020. Picture taken September 27, 2020. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran is currently fighting on two fronts: against the COVID-19 epidemic, which has resulted in the highest death toll in the Middle East, and against economic sanctions that have deprived it of an estimated $150 billion since the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018.