According to Bloomberg HSBC may have lied to US authorities about their knowledge of Huawei’s dealings with Iran.
Meng Wanzhou – Huawei’s chief financial officer and daughter of the company’s founder – was arrested over this on 1 December 2018 in Vancouver.
But Meng’s lawyers argue, she was transparent about the Iran dealings.
They say there are two slides in a presentation she made to HSBC that were omitted from the U.S. filing.
According to Bloomberg:
In its first public comments about Huawei’s legal battle in North America, the U.K. bank said it has no “hostility” toward Huawei and didn’t “ensnare” the company. The bank said it only provided information to the U.S. Department of Justice when it was compelled to do so.
“In response to the U.S. DOJ’s requests for information, HSBC simply presented the objective facts,” the bank said in a statement Saturday. “HSBC did not ‘fabricate’ evidence or ‘hide’ facts. And HSBC would never distort the facts or seek to harm any of our clients for our own gain.”
HSBC has become embroiled in Huawei’s legal fight to block a U.S. request to extradite Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou from Canada to face trial over allegedly violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. Meng has been under house arrest in Vancouver since she was detained at the request of U.S. authorities in 2018.
When HSBC saw Meng Wanzhou’s presentation in 2013, they were already under a Deferrred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the US Department of Justice due to lots of previous money laundering activity.
The terms of the agreement meant that any further illegal activity could have cost them their US banking licence.
And who was charged with overseeing HSBC’s compliance with the DPA?
A firm called Exiger.
And who was Exiger’s head of investigations and Europe, Middle East and African (EMEA) business?
The current Head of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Lisa Osofsky.
Lisa Osofsky has been in the news recently for receiving chummy text messages from a private investigator in relation to the UNAOIL case.
For more on UNAOIL:
SFO also recently signed a recent DPA with G4S over the prison tagging fraud from the early 2010’s.
So far no jail time so far for G4S executives who have managed to secure more and more contracts and make millions of pounds from the UK taxpayer since the original fraud was uncovered.
People sometimes ask who regulates the regulators.
Prisoners are managed by G4S and G4S supposedly, when they do wrong, by the SFO.
But who regulates the SFO?
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