sberbank russ

active meas doc busted/fined mult times, ceo went cyprus bank?!

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sw 3 26

...Epstein’s crimes left a long money trail, and that trail winds back to Russia. Ranking Member of the Finance Committee Ron Wyden has doggedly sought the truth about Epstein’s transactions with Russian banks and eastern European entities. One Suspicious Activity Report filed by JP Morgan Chase after Epstein’s death shows that between 2003 and 2019, Epstein conducted 4,725 wire transactions totaling over $1 billion. And that’s just one bank. Epstein used multiple banks.

According to JP Morgan Chase, the wire activity was flagged for being “consistent with […] alleged sex trafficking of minors” and for involving “the high risk jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.” CNN notes that two accounts included in the Suspicious Activity Report were linked to now-sanctioned Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank. Also named in the Suspicious Activity Reports: Maxwell, associated entities like Brunel’s MC2 Model Management, and various women and girls.

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ref cnn

One month afterJeffrey Epstein died in a jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, JPMorgan Chase reported to US authorities of more than one billion dollars in transactions it viewed as suspicious, according to newly unsealed court records.

The notification was made on September 26, 2019, in a suspicious activity report, which is a kind of confidential report financial institutions file with the Treasury Department to flag potentially nefarious activity.

JPMorgan’s report highlights over $1 billion in transactions Epstein engaged in from October 2003 until July 2019 with numerous related companies, Wall Street titans, his former lawyer and others. Two accounts included in the report were linked to Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank.

The bank wrote in the SAR it was flagging the transactions because of negative media about Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors, media reports of allegations Epstein misappropriating money as an investment adviser, his use of multiple accounts, the Russian banks, and his relationships with two US presidents.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking underaged girls. He died weeks later by suicide in the Metropolitan Correctional Center while awaiting trial.

Judge Jed Rakoff ordered the unsealing of the records, which were part of a lawsuit between the US Virgin Islands and JPMorgan Chase, following requests by The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $290 million to settle a class action lawsuit from survivors of Epstein and an additional $75 million to settle with USVI, where Epstein owned an island. There was no admission of wrongdoing in these settlements.

The documents are the latest in a slow release of materials tied to Epstein as public demand for accountability and transparency about Epstein has gone global. Thursday, Britain’s King Charles took the extraordinary step of stripping his brother Andrew of his prince title. The Justice Department remains under pressure to release more information about its investigation into Epstein, and House lawmakers are taking depositions for their investigation.

Included in the hundreds of pages of unsealed documents are emails between Epstein and Jes Staley, a former top official at JPMorgan bank, who in 2021 resigned as head of Barclays bank following media scrutiny over his long relationship with Epstein. This year, Staley said he didn’t know about Epstein’s involvement with underaged girls but admitted in court that he had sex with one of Epstein’s assistants.

Among the pages are emails between Epstein and Staley, with Epstein suggesting he could set up meetings for Staley to recruit new clients including the co-founders of Google and heads of nations. None of the individuals were accused of any wrongdoing.

Prior to Epstein’s death in 2019, JPMorgan filed a number of SARs involving the disgraced financier’s accounts, and the documents show banking officials shared news articles about Epstein’s alleged activities. JPMorgan closed its accounts with Epstein in 2013, five years after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges and reached a non-prosecution agreement with the US attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida.

The newly unsealed records include the SARs, including one dating as far back as 2002, as well as the last one filed in September 2019.

“Generally, the only new material here is the SARs themselves. Those basically summarize financial information produced in litigation, much of which has been public for years. The SARs do confirm what’s been inferred all along: the bank filed SARs about Epstein early on, and specifically when it exited Epstein from the bank in 2013 – and repeatedly between 2013 and 2019, as required,” said Patricia Wexler, a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase. “It does not appear that anyone in the government or law enforcement acted on those SARs for years.”

In the batch of documents, there’s a letter from the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida which in 2007 sought records from Bear Stearns, one of Epstein’s banks that was later acquired by JPMorgan, as part of its then investigation into Epstein that resulted in the non-prosecution agreement.

One of the biggest Wall Street names mentioned on the list of transactions on the 2019 SAR is Leon Black, a long-time associate of Epstein, who has maintained that Epstein gave him financial advice.

“After an exhaustive investigation more than four years ago, the Dechert law firm concluded that Mr. Black paid Epstein only for tax and estate planning advice that saved him and his family billions of dollars. To imply that Epstein somehow had influence over Mr. Black is false and patently absurd,” Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, said in a statement. “Indeed, it was Mr. Black who fired Epstein because he was disruptive and believed the fees for his services were excessive. The Dechert Report also found that Mr. Black had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.”

The unsealed records include emails between Staley and Epstein about meeting in 2010 with then Prince Andrew. The then-Prince emailed Staley, “Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, has asked JPMorgan for banking records and suggested officials turned a blind eye to Epstein’s conduct to make millions of dollars in fees from his accounts.

In a recent response, the bank denied knowledge of Epstein’s activities, writing, “with the exception of former JPMC executive Jes Staley, the bank’s executives (current and former) are respected professionals who acted with integrity and would never have allowed Epstein to remain a client if they knew of his ongoing crimes.”

“The Firm deeply regrets having had Epstein as a client and would never have continued doing business with him if it believed he engaged in ongoing criminal conduct,” the bank also said.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/23/wilbur-ross-russian-deal-bank-of-cyprus-donald-trump-commerce-secretary}:

trump's commerce secretary oversaw Russia deal while at Bank of Cyprus

This article is more than 2 years old

Questions raised over Trump appointee Wilbur Ross and his ties to politically connected Russian oligarchs

Stephanie Kirchgaessner

@skirchy Email

Thu 23 Mar 2017 05.27 EDTLast modified on Fri 9 Feb 2018 13.48 EST

Bank Of Cyprus

Wilbur Ross was previously vice-chairman of the Bank Of Cyprus.

Wilbur Ross, the Trump administration’s new commerce secretary, presided over a deal with a Russian businessman with ties to Vladimir Putin while serving in his previous role as vice-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus.

The transaction raises questions about Ross’s tenure at the Cypriot bank and his ties to politically connected Russian oligarchs. It comes amid confirmation by the FBI that it is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow to influence the outcome of the presidential election.

White House accused of blocking information on bank's Trump-Russia links

In 2015, while he served as vice-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, the bank’s Russia-based businesses were sold to a Russian banker and consultant, Artem Avetisyan, who had ties to both the Russian president and Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. At the time, Sberbank was under US and EU sanctions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Avetisyan had earlier been selected by Putin to head a new business branch of the Russian president’s strategic initiative agency, which was tasked with improving business and government ties.

Avetisyan’s business partner, Oleg Gref, is the son of Herman Gref, Sberbank’s chief executive officer, and their consultancy has served as a “partner” to Sberbank, according to their website. Ross had described the Russian businesses – including 120 bank branches in Russia – as being worth “hundreds of millions of euros” in 2014 but they were sold with other assets to Avetisyan for €7m (£6m).

Ross has not been accused of wrongdoing and there is no indication the Russian deal violated US or EU sanctions. Ross resigned from the Bank of Cyprus board after he was confirmed as commerce secretary last month.

Democrats raised questions about Ross’s tenure at the Bank of Cyprus before his confirmation, but Ross has said the White House has refused to allow him to respond to the queries. Senator Cory Booker and other Democrats recently sent a third letter to Ross with more questions, including whether Ross had ever done business with companies that were under US sanctions.

In 2014, the Bank of Cyprus was still considered to be in a precarious state following a dramatic €10bn rescue of Cyprus’s banking sector by the ECB and the IMF. Under the terms of the deal, many of the bank’s wealthy Russian deposit holders lost their cash and became shareholders in the bank.

Ross, who had made billions of dollars years earlier by betting on bankrupt steel mills, was known for taking risky bets. But his decision to inject €400m into the bank with other investors encompassed a different kind of risk. It put him at the centre of the biggest financial institution in a country that was widely considered to be a tax haven for Russian oligarchs, even as the US and EU were imposing sanctions on Russia. In 2014, the year he made his investment, the US State Department considered Cyprus an area of “primary concern” for money laundering (pdf), according to its official assessment.

Ross was appointed vice-chairman at the bank after his investment in 2014, a post he shared with a deposit holder-turned-shareholder, Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, referred to in Russian media as a former KGB official and Putin ally. According to the bank’s annual reports, the two attended two board meetings together in 2014 and as many as five together in 2015 before Strzhalkovsky’s May 2015 resignation from the board. One of the questions that has been posed to Ross by Democratic senators is whether he ever had contact with Strzhalkovsky.

One of Ross’s first big decisions at the bank was the appointment of former Deutsche Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann as chairman, whom he chose in part because of Ackermann’s “huge Rolodex”, according to a 2014 Bloomberg interview.

Ackermann’s ties to Russia were especially strong, including a warm relationship with Putin and Herman Gref of Sberbank.

Peter Harrell, who served as the deputy assistant secretary for counter-threat finance and sanctions in the State Department at the time and is now an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said Cyprus was “obviously” one of the places the Obama administration was worried about at the time because it was seen as a place that could help Russian entities evade sanctions, imposed as a result of the conflict over Crimea.

“Cyprus is an EU member state, but given the opacity of the environment there, given the history, there was a risk that it could be used to evade sanctions,” Harrell told the Guardian.

But Ross seemed unfazed by the conflict and its potential impact in an interview with Fox Business News in 2014, telling Maria Bartiromo the tourism industry was surging in Cyprus. When pressed to explain his plans for the bank’s assets in Russia, Ross said they had not been particularly profitable and were only worth “a couple of hundred million euros”.

“Clearly when they are in the middle of a war is not the right time to do anything,” he told Bartiromo.

A year later, Bank of Cyprus announced (pdf) it was offloading the Russian business, including loan exposures, to Avetisyan for €7m. The core assets had been purchased for €450m in 2008. Deutsche Bank’s London office advised Bank of Cyprus on the deal.

There are many factors that could have depressed the price including the financial crisis and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The Bank of Cyprus said the sale of its Russian business was part of a restructuring plan to dispose of non-core assets and that the deal had been agreed after a “rigorous sale process involving experienced external advisers”. It said the sale price reflected the market price and that the sale had resulted in a “significant reduction of risk” and reduced the bank’s exposure to the Russian economy.

“The buyer was both unknown to and unconnected to members of Bank of Cyprus Group’s board of directors,” the bank said.

A spokesman for the commerce department said Ross had been a successful chairman or lead director of over a hundred companies and was an “incredibly successful investor who made the best business decisions possible”.

“In that role, he had a duty to get the best deals for his company, which is a skill he will now bring to bear for the American people,” the spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for Avetisyan declined to comment.

Legal experts who specialise in sanctions law said the deal did not violate EU or US sanctions.

But Harrell, the former Obama administration official, said he found connections between Russia and the Trump administration to be “strange and troubling” and that he included Ross’s tenure at the Bank of Cyprus among the “long list of concerns”. He said: “As an American, doing business between Cyprus and Russia, I would want a higher standard of scrutiny on any deal.”

In a separate management decision under Ross’s watch, Bank of Cyprus gave Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private bank, until 2019 – four more years than originally planned – to pay back a €100m debt it owed in connection to Alfa’s purchase of the bank’s Ukrainian assets. Alfa Bank still owed Bank of Cyprus €57m as of the end of September. Bank of Cyprus said the extension was provided because of the “worsening geopolitical situation in Ukraine”.

John Koenig, former US ambassador to Cyprus, told the Guardian he did not believe Ross had ever gone out of his way to favour Russian investors or the Kremlin. At the time, he recalled, officials were actively seeking investments from big US and European banks but nobody was interested until Ross came along.

“There is no reason to look for a sinister narrative,” Koenig said. “This was a high-risk environment and there were not a lot of external investors interested. It’s the kind of situation he specialises in, isn’t it?”

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank_of_Russia

PJSC Sberbank (Russian: Сбербанк, initially a contraction of "сберегательный банк" – sberegatelnyy bank; English: "savings bank") is a state-owned Russian banking and financial services company headquartered in Moscow. The company was known as "Sberbank of Russia" until 2015. Sberbank has operations in several European and post-Soviet countries. As of 2014 it was the largest bank in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the third largest in Europe, ranked 33rd in the world and first in central and Eastern Europe in The Banker's Top 1000 World Banks ranking.^[6]

History

Russian President Putin visits a Moscow branch of Sberbank, November 2001

Russian coin commemorating the establishment of the first savings banks in the Russian Empire in 1841.

Early history

Sberbank's history goes back to Cancrin's financial reform of 1841,^[7] when a network of the first state-owned savings banks was created in Russia. By the end of the 19th century, the network reached almost 4 thousand outlets with over 2 million depositors.^[8]

Since 1905, savings bank outlets became authorised to sell insurance. After 1910, savings banks started subsidising credit cooperation institutions and extending loans to small lenders. In 1915, savings bank outlets started accepting government securities for depositing.^[9]

Soviet savings banks system

After the October Revolution of 1917, the state savings banks system continued its activity and growth under the management of the Finance Ministry of the USSR as the State Labour Savings Banks System. From 1926, the saving bank outlets were used to pay wages to blue- and white-collar workers. The savings banks were used to distribute state lottery tickets and for the placement of state bonds with the population. The savings banks introduced wider services such as money transfers.^[10]

By late 1980s, the Soviet savings bank system had almost 80 thousand branches. As part of Perestroika reforms, in 1987 the savings bank outlets are reorganised into the Savings Bank of the USSR. Within the Savings bank of the USSR,^[11] separate savings banks were created in the Soviet Republics. Following the dissolution of the USSR, the former republican savings banks became state savings banks of the newly independent post-Soviet states.

In 1991, the Savings bank of the RSFSR has been reorganised into the Joint-Stock Commercial Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (Sberbank of Russia).

Sberbank of Russia

In post-Soviet Russia, Sberbank is the largest universal bank despite growing competition from private and other state-owned commercial banks. The bank has gradually expanded its international presence.^[12]

Since 2007, Sberbank is led by former economy minister Herman Gref.^[13]

Volksbank International acquisition, 2011

In 2011, Sberbank acquired Volksbank International AG from its shareholders Österreichische Volksbanken AG, BPCE, DZ Bank and WGZ Bank. The deal included all VBI assets - banks in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Ukraine, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, except for Volksbank Romania. The agreed price was €585 to €645 million, depending on VBI business performance in 2011. VBI's total assets excluding Romania was €9.4 billion in June 2011.^[14] On 16 December 2013, Volksbank (Ukraine), which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sberbank, changed its name to «VS Bank» (Ukrainian: ВіЕс Банк).^[15][16]

Denizbank acquisition, 2012

In June 2012 Sberbank bought the Turkish DenizBank for Turkish Lira 6,469 billion (about EUR 2,821 billion or US$3.504 billion) from the lender Dexia, which in 2011 was "partly nationalized by the governments of France, Belgium and Luxembourg".^[17] The deal included DenizBank subsidiaries in Turkey, Austria and Russia.^[18]

US, EU, Switzerland, and Ukraine sanctions: 2014-2017

After the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in 2014, the Obama administration imposed sanctions on 12 September 2014, through the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) by adding Sberbank and other entities to the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN).^{[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]} This was done in concert with 31 July 2014 addition of Sberbank to the European Union sanctions list.^[29][30]

Sanctions consist of access restriction to the EU and US capital markets.^[31][32][33] After announcement of the sanctions, and by the end of July, Sberbank's market value had dropped the most market value among the world's major lenders plus investors moved $22 billion from Sberbank's market capitalization.^[34] Still, during the following year Sberbank's share price grew back 89%.^[35] Sberbank together with other Russian banks filed claims with the highest EU court to lift the punitive economic measures.^[36]

On 27 August 2014, Switzerland imposed sanctions on Sberbank and other Russian financial institutions.^[37]

On 22 December 2015, the United States imposed additional sanctions on Sberbank and its subsidiaries.^{[38][39][21][22][23][27]}

On 17 October 2016, Ukraine imposed sanctions against Sberbank Russia, Sberbank Leasing, and their payment systems Kolibri (Hummingbird), formerly Blitz (Ukrainian: «Колибри» стара назва – «Блиц»).^[40][41][42]

On 15 March 2017, the president of Ukraine imposed sanctions on Sberbank (and other Russian state-owned banks operating in Ukraine: VTB Bank, BM Bank, Prominvestbank, and VS Bank (Ukrainian: ВіЕс Банк)) as part of its continued sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and involvement in the War in Donbass.^[43][44][45]

2017 sale of VS Bank to Tihipko

In December 2017, due to sanctions, Sberbank sold its Ukrainian subsidiary, "VS Bank" (Ukrainian: ВіЕс Банк)^[43] to Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Tihipko.^[46]

Ownership

The majority shareholder of Sberbank is the Central Bank of the Russian Federation,owning 50%+1 voting share of Sberbank's voting shares. The rest of the shares are dispersed among portfolio, private and other investors with an estimated shareholding of over 43% held by foreigners.^[47]

Russia's central bank cannot sell its stake without a change in Russia's laws.^[48][49]

Management

The President and Chief Executive Officer is Herman Gref, confirmed by the Board of Directors on 16 October 2007.^[50]

Sergei Gorkov joined Sberbank in November 2008 eventually becoming the head of the international operations and the Senior Vice Chairman of the Board from 10 October 2010, until 26 February 2016, when he left Sberbank to become the Chairman of Vnesheconombank (VEB).^{[51][52][53][54][55]} He greatly expanded Sberbank from operations in only two foreign countries, Kazakhstan (2006)^[56][57] and Ukraine (December 2007),^[56][58] to over twenty countries including Belarus (2009),^[56][59] Germany (2009),^[56][60] China (2010),^[56][61] India (September 2010),^[56][62] Switzerland (31 December 2011),^[56][63]

Austria (acquisition of Volksbank International AG on 15 February 2012; changed name to Sberbank Europe AG on 1 November 2012, with locations in Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Germany),^[56][64] Bosnia-Herzegovina (20 February 2013),^[65] Hungary (31 December 2011; 1 November 2013, as Sberbank Hungary Ltd),^[56][66] Croatia (February 2012),^[56][67] Czech Republic (20 February 2013),^[56][68] Slovenia (28 January 2013),^[56] Serbia (24 December 2012),^[56][69] Slovakia (15 February 2013),^[56][70] and Turkey (acquisition of DenizBank in September 2012).^{[56][71][72][73]} Following Gorkov's departure, Svetlana Alekseyevna Sagaydak (Russian: Светлана Алексеевна Cагайдак) became the new Senior Vice Chairman of the Board.^[52]

The Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Sberbank is Sergey Ignatiev, former Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.^[74]

Formerly from 2003 to 2013 the head of RIA Novosti and from 2006 to 2016 its editor in chief, Svetlana Mironyuk is a vice-president and the head of marketing and communications since 1 February 2016.^[75][76]

Operations

As of 2015 the bank had about 16,500 offices with over 250,000 employees.^[77] According to own estimates, the bank had over 137 million retail clients and over 1.1 million corporate clients in its 22 countries of presence.

As of August 2015 it accounted for 28.6% of aggregate banking assets, calling itself "the circulatory system of the Russian economy","key lender to the Russian economy and the biggest receiver of deposits".^[77]

Within Russia, Sberbank is structured into several regional divisions (territorial banks):

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