Aussie bank deny Iran funding
FACING accusations they could be indirectly financing Iran's nuclear weapons programs, representatives of Australia's big banks have insisted they strictly comply with all the relevant legislation.
FACING accusations they could be indirectly financing Iran’s nuclear weapons programs, representatives of Australia’s big banks have insisted they strictly comply with all the relevant legislation.
Avi Jorisch, an expert on the Islamic Republic’s illegitimate finance arrangements, outlined a number of alleged “dodgy deals” between Australian banks and foreign banks, which provide finance to Iranian entities.
United Nations and Australian sanctions forbid Australian companies from dealing directly with a number of listed Iranian financial institutions.
The United States recently went one step further, seeking to ban banks that trade with specific Iranian banks or members of the rogue state’s regime from accessing American financial services.
However, during a visit to Australia for last month’s Limmud Oz, Jorisch circulated a document he said showed the extent of Australia’s indirect financial links with Iran through finance institutions in Denmark, Germany and India, among others.
To prevent this, the former United States Treasury official encouraged the Australian Government to pass legislation banning Australian banks from providing correspondent services to overseas banks that conduct business with banned Iranian banks.
Stephen Ries, a spokesperson for ANZ, which is among the banks Jorisch accuses of providing funds to Iran via European banks, said his organisation has a strict policy to avoid financial exposure to Iran or Iranian banks and conducts due diligence to ensure its correspondent bank relationships comply with all regulations.
“ANZ suspended all dealings with [Iran’s] Bank Sepah as soon as it was placed on the UN sanctions list in March 2007,” he said. “ANZ closed its representative office in Teheran in July 2007,” Ries said.
This decision, he said, was based on “the need to fully comply with relevant international regulations including those of the US, UN and Australian sanctions programs”.
Steve Batten, spokesperson for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, also strenuously denied his institution had indirect links to Iranian banks.
“It is incorrect to infer that a relationship with a correspondent bank automatically extends to relationships the correspondent bank holds,” he said.
He added if the Commonwealth Bank suspects a bank it deals with is involved in illegal activities, “it has and it will, close the relationship”.
NAB was similarly determined to distance itself from any suggestion it had flouted sanctions. Its compliance team reviewed Jorisch’s document, which detailed specific ties to overseas banks, and concluded NAB had made no payments that breach sanctions.
NAB’s spokesperson George Wright agreed the bank does have relationships with the listed non-Iranian banks, but said those ties are legitimate.
He said: “NAB takes its obligations under UN sanctions extremely seriously and has several controls built into our payment processes to ensure NAB does not breach UN sanctions.”
The AJN presented the bank’s responses to Jorisch, who stood by his claims. “The recent [US] Congressional/ Presidential Bill will force any bank that is dealing with designated entities to choose between the US market and the designated Iranian market,” he said.
“I am under the impression that Australia is considering adopting similar legal language.”
The international community has imposed economic sanctions against Iran in a bid to compel its president to halt their nuclear weapons program.
NAOMI LEVIN
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