Standard Chartered will pay $327 million (about Rs 1,779 crore) to the US authorities in the second half of 2012 as part of a settlement agreement for violation of certain sanction laws.
“The payment is for past violations of sanctions laws and the lack of transparency in connection with certain former payment practices which were terminated in 2007,” the bank said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The foreign bank is required to disclose to the BSE any financial penalties it pays to a foreign country because it’s Indian Depository Receipts (IDRs) are listed in India.
The bank violated US sanctions on Iran, Myanmar, Libya and Sudan by facilitating payments by masking key information.
The bank added that, “US-based Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) found that while the bank’s omission of information affected around 60,000 payments related to Iran totalling $250 billion, the vast majority of those transactions do not appear to have been violations of the Iranian Transactions Regulations.”
Over the entire period from 2001 to the end of 2007, OFAC found that around $24 million of transactions processed on behalf of Iranian parties and a total of $109 million on behalf other sanctioned entities from other countries (Myanmar, Sudan and Libya) appeared to be in violation of sanctions laws.
IDRs of Standard Chartered closed at Rs 105.25, down 0.09 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange.