StanChart to pay $327m to settle Iran case Standard Chartered has agreed to pay an additional $327m to settle allegations that it violated US sanctions law. The fines come four months after the UK bank agreed in August to pay $340m to New York state's Department of Financial Services, which had accused StanChart of defrauding regulators, falsifying records and obstructing government inquiries. The penalties, levied by the Federal Reserve, Department of Justice, Treasury Department and the Manhattan district attorney, conclude a multiyear investigation into allegations that the bank hid from regulators key details involving transactions with entities in countries including Iran. The total sum of $667m forms the largest combined penalty paid to US authorities by a financial institution for allegedly breaching sanctions policy. Another UK bank, HSBC, has set aside some $1.5bn to cover an expected agreement with US regulators that would settle similar allegations. The United States expects a minimum standard of behaviour from all financial institutions that enjoy the benefits of the US financial system. Standard Chartered's conduct was flagrant and unacceptable," said Lanny Breuer, assistant US attorney-general. The bank was accused of stripping identifying information from hundreds of billions of dollars of transactions involving Iran. Benjamin Lawsky, New York state's banking regulator, had called StanChart a "rogue institution" and threatened to revoke its banking licence. StanChart said on Monday that while authorities alleged that transaction details had been omitted, just a small portion of those payments totalling in the hundreds of millions may have run afoul of US sanctions policy. US regulators have said that the key issue in the StanChart case was the bank's alleged dishonesty to bank supervisors regarding the questionable transactions. "Today's agreement holds Standard Chartered Bank accountable for intentionally manipulating transactions to remove references to Iran, Sudan, and other sanctioned entities, and then further concealing these transactions through misrepresentations to US regulators," said Ronald Machen Jr, US attorney for the District of Columbia. In a statement, the bank said it had since upgraded its compliance systems and procedures. The Fed sanctioned the bank for its allegedly "inadequate and incomplete responses to examiner inquiries as well as insufficient oversight of its compliance programme." It added that a "significant portion" of its penalty was assessed for the bank's responses to Fed examiners. The regulator noted that the fine represented one of the largest penalties it had levied for such practices. StanChart last week braced investors for the fine, telling them that the financial group expected to pay some $330m to settle the allegations.