Barclays Hit With $298 Million Fine for Violating Trade Law

For more than a decade, Barclays would strip information from wire transfers funneled through the United States that identified the money as coming from sanctioned countries and entities, according to the court complaint.

Barclays, according to the complaint, would follow instructions from banks in the sanctioned countries not to use the banks’ names in messages that traveled through the United States. It also routed the payments to conceal the connection to sanctioned countries, amended messages to remove information that identified sanctioned entities, and used a less transparent method of payment messages.

Barclays funneled about $500 million in illegal payments from 1995 through 2006, federal and New York State prosecutors said. The bank’s actions violated, among other things, the federal Trading With the Enemy Act and New York State laws against falsifying business records.