ING to pay $619 mn to settle US sanctions charges

Dutch bank ING will pay $619 million to settle US government accusations that it violated sanctions banning transactions with Cuba, Iran and others, the Treasury Department said Tuesday. The settlement is the largest settlement of any kind with the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to date, the Treasury said. "ING Bank's apparent violations, which totaled more than $1.6 billion routed through the United States despite US sanctions, arose out of policies at multiple offices of ING Bank's Wholesale Banking Division," it said in a statement. The settlement resolves OFAC's civilian investigation into ING Bank's "intentional manipulation and deletion of information" about US-sanctioned parties in more than 20,000 financial and trade transactions routed through third-party banks located in the United States between 2002 and 2007. The transactions were mainly in apparent violation of US sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, Sudan and the now-repealed sanctions against Libya. In addition to the settlement with OFAC, ING simultaneously also concluded settlements with the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice's National Security Division, the Department of Justice's Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section and the New York County District Attorney's Office.