Swiss bank major Credit Suisse has agreed to pay $536 million to the United States for flouting laws and doing business with and for countries which America had specifically banned from its financial systems.
The violations relate to transactions Credit Suisse illegally conducted on behalf of customers from Iran, Sudan, Myanmar and other countries, violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and New York state law.
"Indeed, as set forth in the court documents filed on Thursday, this case offers a stark and disturbing example of the lengths to which some corporate wrongdoers are willing to go in seeking ill-gotten financial gains," said the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, at a news conference on Wednesday.
For more than a decade, he alleged, Credit Suisse did business with and for countries on which the US had imposed sanctions, prohibiting financial transactions.
Credit Suisse, like all other major global banks, knew well that the US would not process financial transactions from individuals or companies in places like Iran, Libya, Sudan, Burma, and Cuba, he said.
"But rather than adhere to the law and decline to serve these customers, Credit Suisse established a business model to allow these rogue players access to US dollars."
"At one point, the company even developed a pamphlet for its Iranian clients, explaining how to fill out payment messages so as not to trigger US filters. They created a "how-to" book on committing a crime and it worked well for years," Holder said.
"In another case, a Credit Suisse team leader circulated an email with screen shots of payment applications, showing how to format messages to ensure that they would pass through the United States undetected," he said.
"The settlement we announce today ensures that Credit Suisse will not flout the law again for its own financial gain," Holder said.
According to court documents, beginning as early as 1995 and continuing through 2006, Credit Suisse, in Switzerland and the United Kingdom, altered wire transfers involving US sanctioned countries or persons.
Specifically, according to court documents, Credit Suisse deliberately removed material information, such as customer names, bank names and addresses, from payment messages so that the wire transfers would pass undetected through filters at US financial institutions.
Credit Suisse also trained its Iranian clients to falsify wire transfers so that such messages would pass undetected through the US financial system. This scheme allowed US sanctioned countries and entities to move hundreds of millions of dollars through the US financial system.
