Not for the express purpose of breaking the law, I would hope.

Not for the express purpose of breaking the law, I would hope.

It's a while since I was involved with them, but IIRC Swift messages have very specific formats.

Much of what is being described in the extracts you posted could just as easily have been done legitimately to meet format requirements and to remove extraneous information.

I'm afraid I have little faith or trust in the US government's motives, nor in those of our media in jumping on this as they have.

Again, it simply makes me think "where's the sleight of hand here, what should we be looking at".

Also, read djstevec's post...

26. SCB sought outside legal advice regarding its U-Turn policy and was apparently instructed that compliance with U.S. law required a process by which its New York branch received “foreknowledge of such authorized [U-Turn] payments” so as to “otherwise ascertain that the payments are authorized.” SCB was advised that its New York branch needed to “assure itself that it is making permissible payments.”

27. Rather than institute any such procedure, SCB instead conspired with Iranian Clients to transmit misinformation to the New York branch by removing and otherwise misrepresenting wire transfer data that could identify Iranian parties. For example, regarding necessary wire transfer documentation, SCB instructed CBI/Markazi to “send in their MT 202‟s with a [SCB London‟s business identifier code] as this is what we required them to do in the initial set up of the account. Therefore, the payments going to NY do not appear to NY to have come from an Iranian Bank.”

SCB also accomplished this subterfuge by:

(a) inserting special characters (such as “.”) in electronic message fields used to identify transacting parties;
(b) inserting phrases such as “NO NAME GIVEN” or “NOT STATED” in lieu of requested information that would identify Iranian Clients; and
(c) employing a system known as SCB‟s “repair procedure,” whereby SCB overseas employees screened payment messages – before they were communicated to its New York branch – in order to ascertain if any messages contained information that identified Iranian Clients.

21. Years later, another SCB executive closely weighed the costs and benefits of concealing the identities of Iranian Clients. He observed that “the current process under which some SWIFT messages are manually ‘repaired’ to remove reference to Iran could (despite accepted SWIFT protocols) be perceived by OFAC as a measure to conceal the Iranian connection from SCB NY, and therefore evade their controls for filtering Iran-related payments.

Unless transactions are repaired they face delays caused by investigations in the U.S. banking system, subjecting SCB to interest claims.” He described SCB‟s repair procedures as a “process to check that a payment is, prima facie, an acceptable U-turn transaction (i.e. offshore to offshore),” and fully acknowledged that “they do not provide assurance that it does not relate to a prohibited transaction, and therefore SCB NY is exposed to the risk of a breach of sanctions.”

Did you note the "could" in that last excerpt.

I did, and as it turns out so did the relevant financial authorities over there.

Point being it's neither news nor illegal unless "could" is turned into "was"

Particularly international banking business where transactions are cross border and inevitably require detailed and precise reporting. By law.

Point being it's neither news nor illegal unless "could" is turned into "was"

i wasnt aware i had one, but thanks. it's clear from above accounting makes as much sense to me as banking does to you! i'll give a thread on accounting a miss...