Category: _enforcement

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The US Supreme Court rejected Wednesday the claim of sovereign immunity by a Turkish bank accused of violating Iran sanctions, in a case that has added tensions to ties between Washington and Ankara.

Halkbank was hit with US criminal charges in 2019 that it took part in a yearlong scheme to launder billions of dollars worth of Iranian oil and natural gas proceeds, violating sanctions on Iran.

The funds were used to buy gold and the transactions were disguised as food and medicine purchases in order to fall under a humanitarian exemption to the sanctions, according to court documents.

As part of the scheme, Halkbank allegedly used front companies to funnel $20 billion to Iran, including $1 billion through the US financial system, the US Justice Department said.

The United States charged the bank with six counts of fraud, money laundering, and sanctions offenses, calling it one of the most serious sanctions-breaking cases it has seen.

  After years of watching U.S. President Donald Trump flout democratic norms and the rule of law, it is easy to feel a sense of vindication from his indictment in early April by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for falsifying business records. Few objective observers doubt that the facts support this indictment or one of the many other potential indictments confronting Trump today—including those for mishandling classified documents, pressuring election officials in Georgia, and inciting the January 6 attack on…

Defendants Are New York City Residents Who Allegedly Operated the Police Station in Lower Manhattan and Destroyed Evidence When Confronted by the FBI A complaint was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging two defendants in connection with opening and operating an illegal overseas police station, located in lower Manhattan, New York, for a provincial branch of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). “Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx,…

Some of Turkey’s largest airport ground handler firms stopped providing services to western-made aircraft owned by Russian airlines earlier this month, multiple sources told Middle East Eye.  The sources, who are within the aviation industry and are familiar with the issue, said Havas, Turkey’s largest ground service provider, as well as Turkish Ground Services (TGS), stopped serving the US-made Boeing and European Airbus aircraft used by Russian companies. Havas sent a letter in January to warn Russian firms that it may need to take action in…

The US on Wednesday slapped sanctions on several entities based in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates which it said had violated US export controls and helped Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. The firms were included in a new list of sanctions rolled out by the US Treasury Department against more than 120 targets across over 20 countries and jurisdictions. Those sanctioned include a Cypriot “fixer” for a Russian oligarch, a Russian-controlled bank in Hungary and entities associated with Russia’s…

E-commerce giant Amazon has recently banned the sale of the Flipper Zero portable multi-tool for pen-testers, citing its potential use as a card-skimming device. The move has prompted Flipper Devices’ CEO Pavel Zhovner to ask Amazon to reconsider its decision, insisting that the device is incapable of such illegal activity.

The Flipper Zero is a compact, portable, and programmable pen-testing tool that enables users to experiment with and debug various digital and hardware devices using multiple protocols, including RFID, radio, NFC, infrared, Bluetooth, and more. Since its launch, users have showcased its capabilities, including activating doorbells, conducting replay attacks to unlock cars and open garage doors, and cloning a wide range of digital keys.

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s antitrust regulator has fined Alphabet Inc’s Google 42.1 billion won ($31.88 million) for blocking the release of mobile video games on a competitor’s platform.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said on Tuesday that Google bolstered its market dominance, and hurt local app market One Store’s revenue and value as a platform, by requiring video game makers to exclusively release their titles on Google Play in exchange for providing in-app exposure between June 2016 and April 2018.

The KFTC said the move against the U.S. technology giant is part of efforts by the government to ensure fair markets.

Game makers affected by Google’s action include Netmarble, Nexon and NCSOFT, as well as other smaller companies, the antitrust regulator added.

In 2021, Google was fined more than 200 billion won by the KFTC for blocking customised versions of its Android operating system.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas judge who sparked a legal firestorm with an unprecedented ruling halting approval of the nation’s most common method of abortion is a former attorney for a religious liberty legal group with a long history pushing conservative causes.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, on Friday ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. His ruling, which doesn’t take immediate effect, came practically at the same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, essentially ordered the opposite in a different case in Washington. The split likely puts the issue on an accelerated path to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Anthony Joseph Damiano and his funeral service companies—Funeral & Cremation Group of North America, LLC, and Legacy Cremation Services, LLC (doing business as Heritage Cremation Provider, Evergreen Funeral Home and Crematory, and Carolina Central Crematory)—will pay civil penalties and abide by strict requirements on how they communicate with customers to resolve a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The DOJ and FTC filed their complaint against Damiano and his companies in April 2022, alleging that they misrepresented their location, leading consumers to believe they were a local provider, advertised deceptively low prices, illegally threatened and failed to return cremated remains to bereaved consumers, and failed to provide disclosures required by the Funeral Rule.

“Lying to consumers about critical information including price and location of services when they are dealing with the loss of a loved one is outrageous and illegal,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Our actions in this case show the FTC’s commitment to enforcing the Funeral Rule to protect consumers and honest funeral homes.”

The complaint alleged that the defendants claimed to be local funeral or cremation providers when speaking with customers, failing to disclose that the services would be contracted to a third party, sometimes hours away from loved ones. The complaint also alleged that when consumers were presented with undisclosed fees and higher prices, the defendants in some cases withheld the remains of their loved ones to extract payment.

The proposed court order, which was agreed to by the defendants in the case, would require the defendants to:

Share important info on their website: The order requires the defendants to disclose key facts on their website, including their actual physical location and a general price list, as well as a notice when funeral goods or services will be provided by a third-party company not owned by the defendants.
Disclose their price list upfront: The defendants are required to provide consumers with a general price list either during or immediately after their first interaction with a consumer about funeral goods or services, whether online or by telephone, and before any discussion of price occurs.
Provide info on third parties: The order requires the defendants to give consumers the name, address, and contact information for any third-party provider that will provide funeral goods or services.
Pay a civil penalty: The order requires the defendants to pay $275,000 in civil penalties.

The staff attorneys on this matter are Thomas Harris and Rebecca Plett.

The Department of Justice filed the order and civil penalty judgment on behalf of the Commission in the U.S. District Court for the District of Florida. NOTE: Consent judgments have the force of law when approved and signed by the District Court judge.

The American bank Wells Fargo has been fined $97.8m (£79m) by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department for breaching US sanctions laws. Inadequate oversight meant that it allowed a foreign institution to process $532m in illegal transactions involving Iran, Syria and Sudan. Wells Fargo said it stopped dealing with the client in 2015.

Former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq., a partner at the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (“KSF”), announces that KSF has commenced an investigation into Redwire Corporation (NYSE: RDW).

In November 2021, the Company disclosed that it could not timely file its quarterly report due to an internal investigation into accounting issues. On March 31, 2022, the Company disclosed a multitude of internal procedural and control failures, including “an additional material weakness” beyond the company’s “previously identified internal control deficiencies.” The next day, the Company finally filed its 3Q2021 report revealing that its “disclosure controls and procedures” suffered from an inadequate “control environment” and that “certain members of senior management failed to consistently message and set certain aspects of an appropriate tone at the top.”

Japan’s antitrust watchdog on Thursday ordered three major utilities to pay a total of 101 billion yen in fines for forming cartels over electricity sales, in a move that goes against the nation’s efforts to free up the electric power market. The amount of the penalty, to be collected from electricity companies based in central, western and southwestern regions, is the highest ever imposed by the Japan Fair Trade Commission for a violation of the antimonopoly law. Chugoku Electric Power…

The Biden administration has sanctioned a Slovakian man who U.S. officials said attempted to facilitate an arms deal that would have given Russia access to weapons and munitions from North Korea in exchange for aircraft, food and other material.

The Treasury Department announced new sanctions targeting Ashot Mkrtychev, the man accused of trying to arrange the secret deal. Officials said the episode is the latest sign that Russia is searching for ways to replenish its military capabilities as it continues to suffer losses amid heavy fighting in Ukraine.

“We know that between the end of 2022 and early 2023, that [Mkrtychev] worked with North Korean officials to attempt to obtain, as I said, over two dozen kinds of weapons and ammunitions for Russia” in exchange for aircraft, raw materials and commodities, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on a call. He said any such arrangement would violate multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The Treasury Department said Mkrtychev “confirmed Russia’s readiness to receive military equipment from the DPRK with senior Russian officials,” using North Korea’s official diplomatic name. The department said Mkrtychev worked with a Russian official to locate commercial aircraft that could be delivered to North Korea. Thursday’s sanctions mean all of Mkrtychev’s property and interests in the U.S. or in the possession of U.S. persons are blocked.

Four bankers from a Russian bank’s Swiss branch have been found guilty by a Zurich court over vast sums going into the accounts of a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin.

The accounts in the Swiss arm of Gazprombank were held by Sergei Roldugin, the artistic director of the St. Petersburg Music House, who is often dubbed Putin’s cellist.

Roldugin has been a friend of Putin for more than four decades and is godfather to one of the Russian leader’s daughters.

The four men were found guilty of “lack of due diligence in financial transactions”, the Zurich District Court said in its verdict released to media on Thursday, over the millions of Swiss francs flowing through Roldugin’s account.

Under Swiss law, the bankers — two Russians, one Swiss and a Russian-born British national — cannot be identified.

The bank branch’s chief executive was fined 540,000 Swiss francs ($590,200).

U.S. corporate due diligence firm Mintz Group said on Thursday its Beijing office was raided by authorities and five Chinese staff were detained, stoking worry among foreign companies in China just as its capital hosts an international economic forum.

News of the raid and detentions comes as Sino-U.S. relations have spiraled downwards following months of diplomatic tensions, including over the U.S. military downing in February of a suspected Chinese spy balloon and a planned U.S. transit next week by the president of Taiwan, the self-governed island China claims as its territory.

“We can confirm that Chinese authorities have detained the five staff in Mintz Group’s Beijing office, all of them Chinese nationals, and have closed our operations there,” the company said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

The company said it was ready to work with Chinese authorities to “resolve any misunderstanding that may have led to these events”, and that its top concern was the safety and wellbeing of colleagues in China.