Standard Chartered PLC (LSE:STAN) has been accused of facilitating billions of dollars worth of transactions linked to US-designation terrorist organisations including Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda.
In newly filed court documents, former Standard Chartered banker turned whistleblower Julian Knight accused US authorities of either overlooking or concealing evidence of the illegal transactions allegedly conducted in the mid-2000s.
According to a report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Knight has accused the US authorities of falsely denying that he had provided “damning evidence” that the bank “facilitated many billions of dollars in banking transactions for Iran, numerous international terror groups, and the front companies for those groups”.
Standard Chartered, in 2012, agreed to forfeit $227 million to the Justice Department for conducting transactions with sanctioned entities in Iran, Sudan, Libya, and Burma.
In 2019, Standard Chartered admitted to illegally processing transactions in violation of Iranian sanctions. The bank agreed to pay more than $1 billion in fines.
But Knight claims Standard Chartered conducted significantly more transfers than the bank admitted at the time. He has asked the US Federal Court in New York to reinstate his claims.
He claims that more than half a million separate transactions between 2008 and 2013 were “cloaked”.
Standard Chartered, in a comment to the BBC, said it was “confident the courts will reject these claims“.
The bank said US authorities had previously concluded the whistleblowers’ claims were “meritless”.