German Bank Fined One Billion Dollars for Violating Iran Sanctions

Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest bank, has reached a preliminary agreement with the U.S. government and is required to pay over one billion dollars in fines due to violations of sanctions against Iran and Sudan, as well as money laundering. According to a source cited by AFP on Thursday, December 20, Commerzbank is in discussions with the Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve, and other relevant U.S. agencies to finalize the agreement. Under this agreement, Germany's second-largest bank will pay 600 million dollars for conducting transactions with U.S.-sanctioned countries like Iran and Sudan, and over 400 million dollars for other charges. The main additional charge is the bank's internal oversight weaknesses regarding money laundering. The U.S. has been investigating violations of sanctions against Iran and Sudan by Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, two major German banks, for about five months, but AFP's report does not mention whether Deutsche Bank has also been convicted in these investigations. At that time, it was stated that the main charge against Commerzbank was the use of the U.S. financial system for financial transactions on behalf of sanctioned countries like Iran. Previously, several major European banks have reached agreements with the U.S. government to pay fines for violating sanctions against countries like Iran and Sudan to avoid having their cases sent to the U.S. judicial system. Sending these banks' cases to court in the U.S. could lead to the revocation of their licenses to operate in the United States, which would mean cutting off the bank's access to international financial transactions in dollars. BNP Paribas, one of Europe's largest banks based in France, is among those banks that agreed to pay a fine of nearly 9 billion dollars, which has been described as unprecedented in the history of banking crimes.