Drum beat: Washington Fines British Bank Involved in Financial Transactions with Cuba

[Mika]

According to Big Brother, Cuba is an unation.

Washington Fines British Bank Involved in Financial Transactions with Cuba
http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2010/0817washington-fines-british-bank-involved.htm

We have ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia.

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[Judi Lynn]

1. How tired must the world be with this playground bully act, anyway?

Judge criticises US over 'soft' fine for Barclays Bank
Washington court criticises 'sweetheart deal' and $298m fine for bank that flouted international sanctions
Andrew Clark in New York The Guardian, Wednesday 18 August 2010

A judge has attacked the US government for striking a "sweetheart deal" with Barclays to settle criminal charges that the British bank flouted international sanctions by doing clandestine business with Iran, Cuba, Libya, Sudan and Burma.

At a court hearing in Washington yesterday, judge Emmet Sullivan refused to rubber-stamp an agreement under which Barclays consented to pay $298m to settle charges that its staff deliberately concealed transactions with financial institutions in regimes frozen out by US foreign policy.

"Why isn't the government getting tough with the banks?" Sullivan asked, pointing out that no individuals were being charged or sent to prison over the breaches. The judge's unexpected resistance threw the settlement into doubt pending a more detailed hearing, scheduled for Wednesday.

Barclays is anxious to move beyond a scandal in which it owned up to sanctions-busting between 1995 and 2006. The bank has joined Lloyds TSB, Credit Suisse and ABN Amro among overseas financial institutions caught by US rules which cover them because they have branch operations in New York.

Plea bargains to settle criminal charges are common in the US and are often nodded through by the bench. But in the latest of several shows of judicial scepticism towards hasty settlements of Wall Street misdemeanours, Sullivan described the agreement as "an accommodation to a foreign bank" and pointed out that the average American caught robbing a bank is not given a deferred prosecution deal or an opportunity to refund the proceeds from crime.

Prosecutors say Barclays staff stripped identifying names from payment information in a deliberate ruse to defy US sanctions against repressive regimes, including countries accused of being state sponsors of terrorism.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/18/barclays-criticised-in-washington

[Billy Burnett]

2. In America, how is it that playing the terror card still works against Cuba?