On 18 February 2020, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury
(Minister) upheld the decision by the Office of
Financial Sanctions Implementation's (OFSI) to
issue monetary penalties totalling £20.47
million against Standard Chartered Bank
(SCB) for breaches of financial sanctions.
What Was the Fine For?
The penalties were imposed for breaches of restrictive measures
imposed by the European Union (including the UK) intended to
prevent certain Russian banks, companies, and their subsidiaries
from accessing EU primary and secondary capital markets (including
access to loans).
As part of those measures, an EU person is prohibited from
making loans or credit or being part of an arrangement to
make loans or credit, available to sanctioned entities, where those
loans or credit have a maturity of over 30 days.
1 However, loans and credit which have the specific
and documented objective of financing the import/export of
non-prohibited goods coming in or out of the EU are
