It’s getting expensive to do business in the U.S. if it means you have to cater to its every whim in its interactions with the world. Credit Suisse (SIX: CSGN) is the latest to learn that lesson as they have agreed to pay a fine of $536 million for its part in doing business with clients from Iran.
The fine was levied against the Swiss bank for evidently ‘violating’ U.S. sanctions against Iran.
Credit Suisse was accused by the U.S. of aiding countries like Iran, Burma, Cuba, Libya and Sudan get around the economic sanctions it imposed on them.
This isn’t the first foreign bank incurring fines from the U.S. in the same matter, as British bank Lloyds-TSB also received fines of $350 million by the U.S. for its involvement with Iranian clients as well.
It seems once Lloyds stopped doing business with Iran and some of these other countries in 2003, the business with Iran was then taken up by Credit Suisse.
If businesses from other countries want to do business with America, the U.S. government retains the right to take legal procedures against those businesses for actions not only directly involving America, but for actions that may involved other countries as well.
Attorney General Eric Holder said this in a statement:
“For more than a decade, Credit Suisse did business with and for countries that the United States had specifically banned from our financial systems. The rules that prohibited financial transactions with these sanctioned nations were in place for many years. Credit Suisse, like all other major global banks, knew well that the United States would not process financial transactions from individuals or companies in places like Iran, Libya, Sudan, Burma, and Cuba.”
Credit Suisse responded to accepting the fine saying, “Credit Suisse is committed to the highest standards of integrity and regulatory compliance in all its businesses, and takes this matter extremely seriously. Credit Suisse has enhanced its procedures to prevent practices of this type from occurring in the future.”
