Free Republic

London-based banks HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc tumbled in Hong Kong after early results from Britain’s European Union referendum indicated greater support for an exit than academics had forecast. HSBC, which made about a third of its 2015 revenue in Europe, fell as much as 3.1 percent and Standard Chartered as much as 3.7 percent. Financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase & Co., HSBC and Deutsche Bank AG warned ahead of Britain’s vote that they could shift some operations from London if the U.K. left the EU. HSBC would probably move about 1,000 investment bankers to Paris in the...

Families of victims of a deadly 1983 bombing of U.S. Marines in Lebanon filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to hold Standard Chartered Bank and its New York branch accountable. They claim in the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the bank conspired with Iran and its agents to hide Iran's assets from them. They're seeking to trace assets as they try to enforce a $2.6 billion judgment against the Islamic Republic of Iran. A federal court in Washington, D.C., issued the award in 2007 after Iran failed to contest claims it was involved in the bombing, which...

The life or death of STANCHART is settled - they live; and the $250 billion of 'laundering' transactions - sanctions/terrorism/drugs-related or not - are settled for a 0.14% transaction fee (that'll teach 'em!). In other words, Std Chartered's IRR for committing years of crime is 714%. Finally this is a whopping 1.9% of the bank's entire 2011 revenues, or in other words they had to hand over 7 days of revenue (assuming a 365 day work week).

With last week’s passage of the Iran Sanctions Bill, Congress took a bold step against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, closing loopholes in existing sanctions law and adding tough new restrictions on transactions benefiting the country’s financial, energy, and shipping industries. Implicit in these new sanctions is the recognition that money – particularly corporate money – is a key buttress of terrorist networks, providing terrorists with the resources they need to carry out their radical and destructive ideology. In many cases, the individuals and companies engaging in terror finance are unaware of their role providing funding to terrorist groups. The global...

(Reuters) - A rogue Standard Chartered Plc banking unit violated U.S. anti-money laundering laws by scheming with Iran to hide more than $250 billion of transactions, and may lose its license to operate in New York State, a state banking regulator said on Monday. Lawsky's order quotes a senior Standard Chartered official in London who, upon being advised by a North American colleague that its Iran dealings could cause "catastrophic reputational damage," reportedly replied: "You f---ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians."