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FINANCE

Deutsche Bank handed $630m fine over Russian money laundering

New York and British authorities on Monday slapped nearly $630 million in fines on German banking giant Deutsche Bank over alleged money laundering in Russia, New York State's Department of Financial Services announced.

Deutsche Bank handed $630m fine over Russian money laundering
Photo: DPA

The scheme illegally moved $10 billion out of Russia, using so-called mirror trades among the bank's Moscow, London and New York offices, authorities said. The US Justice Department also is investigating the matter.

The fines were the latest development in the string of legal woes for the German banking giant, coming less than two weeks after the bank finalized a $7.2 billion settlement with the US Justice Department over its role in the 2008 global financial crisis.

The New York authorities said in a statement they were joined by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority in penalizing the bank after finding pervasive weaknesses in Deutsche Bank's internal safeguards for money laundering and client risk.

DFS fined the bank $425 million, while FCA's fine was 163 million pounds, or about $204 million.

“This Russian mirror-trading scheme occurred while the bank was on clear notice of serious and widespread compliance issues dating back a decade,” DFS Superintendent Maria Vullo said in the statement.

Bank units tasked with legal compliance and preventing money laundering were understaffed and ineffective, the DFS said.

In “mirror” trades, clients would purchase stocks in rubles in Moscow while other clients who were related or even had the same owner would sell the same stock at the same price through the bank's London branch.

“By converting rubles into dollars through security trades that had no discernible economic purpose, the scheme was a means for bad actors within a financial institution to achieve improper ends while evading compliance with applicable laws,” according to the legal document detailing the settlement with DFS.

In addition to paying the fines, Deutsche Bank also will be required to hire an outside monitor to review its internal compliance measures.

RUSSIA

Russia announces no New Year’s greetings for France, US, Germany

US President Joe Biden, France's Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will not be receiving New Year's greetings from Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Friday.

Russia announces no New Year's greetings for France, US, Germany

As the world gears up to ring in the New Year this weekend, Putin sent congratulatory messages to the leaders of Kremlin-friendly countries including Turkey, Syria, Venezuela and China.

But Putin will not wish a happy New Year to the leaders of the United States, France and Germany, countries that have piled unprecedented sanctions on Moscow over Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

“We currently have no contact with them,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“And the president will not congratulate them given the unfriendly actions that they are taking on a continuous basis,” he added.

Putin shocked the world by sending troops to pro-Western Ukraine on February 24.

While Kyiv’s Western allies refused to send troops to Ukraine, they have been supplying the ex-Soviet country with weapons in a show of support that has seen Moscow suffer humiliating setbacks on the battlefield.

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