RBS agrees to forfeit $500m to US

11th May 2010 07:07

Part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed to pay the US government $500m to settle charges it conspired to violate the US Bank Secrecy Act.The Department of Justice said ABN Amro, the lender RBS bought in 2007, had helped banks and customers from blacklisted countries, such as Cuba, Iran, Libya, and Sudan, to carry out transactions."Over the course of a decade, ABN AMRO assisted sanctioned countries and entities in evading US laws by facilitating hundreds of millions of US dollar transactions," said US Attorney Ronald Machen.Assistant Attorney General Breuer added: "ABN AMRO facilitated the movement of illegal money through the US financial system by stripping information from transactions and turning a blind eye to its compliance obligations." "It is essential that financial institutions both large and small properly monitor the origins of funds flowing into our financial system. When financial institutions fail to do so, and, even worse, manipulate information in order to profit from prohibited transactions, they will be held accountable."