The deal, which includes admissions of guilt by one of the world’s largest banks for knowingly violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (pdf) and the Trading with the Enemy Act (pdf), will see it pay $8.9 billion.
The scheming by BNP Paribas—which occurred over an eight-year period—assisted interests in Iran, Sudan and Cuba in conducting business subject to sanctions imposed by Washington. The bank continued to violate the law even after being warned by its own lawyers that its conduct was illegal.
Legal experts hailed the agreement, noting its size for punishing such a large financial institution.
“This is the Gargantua of bank prosecutions,” Brandon Garrett, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, told the Corporate Crime Reporter. “The BNP plea will provide the largest forfeiture ever in a criminal case. It will amount to the largest total monetary payment in a corporate prosecution agreement. Those payments are far in excess of the criminal fine in the case. And the payments dwarf any in prior bank prosecutions.”