Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, August 26, 2011

Treasury Department Fines JPMorgan Chase $88.3 Million

JPMorgan has settled with the U.S. Treasury Department on an $88.3 million payout for breaking U.S. embargo laws and trade sanctions in three incidents between 2005 and 2011, The New York Times' Dealbook reports. The bank made a series of transactions with Cuba, Iran and Sudan over that time. The list of infractions are as follows, and total to an estimated $181.4 million in violations:
  • In late 2005 early 2006, JPMorgan violated embargo laws by processing $178.5 million in wire transfers for cuban nationals. A different, unnamed financial institution tipped the bank off to their own misdeeds, but they failed to alert the proper authorities, and didn't make enough of an effort to ensure it wouldn't happen again. 
  • In 2009 the bank processed a $2.9 million loan with, "a bank that had ties to Iran’s government-owned shipping line," a violation of trade sanctions agains the country. JPMorgan was made aware of the mistake, but again failed to inform regulators in due time. They didn't inform regulators of their mistake until three days before the loan was paid in full. 
  • In 2011, the Treasury asked for documents regarding a wire transfer that referred to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. JPMorgan said they didn't know what they were talking about. The Treasury presented JPMorgan with a list of documents they believed were in the bank's possession, and, after denying it the first time, the bank coughed up the documents shortly after. 
An OFAC spokeswoman commented on the charges:
“The civil settlement resolves a number of OFAC allegations dating back to 2005, none of which involved any intent to violate OFAC regulations. These rare incidents were unrelated and isolated from each other. We are pleased to have resolved these matters and to move forward with enhancements to our global OFAC compliance program.”
Officials from the Treasury Department said that, "managers and supervisors acted with knowledge of the conduct constituting the apparent violations and recklessly failed to exercise a minimal degree of caution or care." The fine was also reduced because JPMorgan had "cooperated substantially" with the investigation.

Origin
Source: the Atlantic Wire  

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