Archivoy evidencia II

123 HSBC Group Compliance head Matthew King forwarded the legal advice to HBME officials Brian Richards and John Richards, stating: “I confirm I am happy for the business to be undertaken on this basis.” He also wrote: “I am assuming this business will be booked in HBEU, hence I am copying Chris Couldrey. If any other Group entity is likely to be involved, could you let me know.” 681 Brian Richards responded the following day to confirm that payment orders from Bank Melli’s account would originate from HBEU, and credits in favor of Bank Melli would be credited to their account at HBEU. He stated that the payment orders would not mention Bank Melli, and HBUS would not receive payment orders or receipts directly from an Iranian entity. Mr. Richards concluded that the payment chain would meet the U-turn definition provided by Mr. Simons. 682 HBEU Payment Instructions. HBEU, HBUS, and HSBC Group Compliance continued to discuss HBEU’s proposal to process U.S. dollar transactions for Bank Melli.

In a letter dated April 30, 2001, HBEU’s Multicurrency Payments Department (MPD) sent Bank Melli a proposal to process their payments with “minimal manual intervention.” 683 The letter included payment templates with specific instructions on how to format U.S. dollar transactions so the paperwork would not have to be altered by HBEU. MPD proposed that Bank Melli use the provided templates to complete payments fields for both MT202 and MT100 SWIFT messages 684 and to test the proposal. 685 In the letter, MPD Business Development Manager John Fowle advised the Bank Melli Cash and Payments Manager in London, Saeed Pourjam: “[F]ollowing tests in our payments environment we are confident that we have found a solution to processing your payments with minimal manual intervention. The key is to Matthew King to Winthrop Brown and HBME John Richards, “Memo: OFAC constraints in the Central Bank of Iran operating a USD Clearing account with HSBC Bank plc in London,” HSBC OCC 8903876-877.) One of the firm’s lawyers, John Simons, consulted with OFAC and obtained a copy of the payment processing procedure for qualified “U-Turn Dollar Clearing” transactions. He explained he was waiting to confirm with OFAC’s Chief Counsel Office about whether a second U.S. bank was required to process permissible U-turn transactions. The email indicated that they had also determined that a requirement in Section 560.516 (b) for U.S. depository institutions to determine if an underlying transaction was prohibited by OFAC, “prior to initiating a payment on behalf of any customer or crediting a transfer to the account on its books of the ultimate beneficiary,” did not apply to U-turns. (See 2/2001 email from John Simons to Winthrop Brown, “Memo: OFAC constraints in the Central Bank of Iran operating a USD Clearing account with HSBC Bank plc in London,” HSBC OCC 8903875-876.)

In April 2001, Mr. Simons emailed Mr. King that OFAC had confirmed that a second U.S. bank was not required when processing permissible U-turn transactions and no specific OFAC license was required to engage in U-turn transactions. (See 4/26/2001 email from John Simons to HSBC Matthew King and others, OFAC – Iran,” HSBC OCC 8903868-870.

681 4/26/2001 email from HSBC Matthew King to HBME Brian Richards and others, “OFAC – Iran,” HSBC OCC 8903868.

682 4/27/2001 email from HBME Brian Richards to HSBC Matthew King and others, “OFAC – Iran,” HSBC OCC 8903874.

683 See 7/11/2001 email from HBUS Carolyn Wind to HSBC Matthew King and others, “Bank Melli,” HSBC OCC 8876130-136 at 135-136 (including a copy of the April letter).

684 MT202 and MT100 are examples of SWIFT messages used by financial institutions to facilitate payment processing. Different messages utilize specialized formats, dependent on the type of transaction, to process the payments. Subcommittee briefing by OFAC (5/8/2012); Subcommittee briefing by Deloitte (5/51/2012).

685 7/11/2001 email from HBUS Carolyn Wind to HSBC Matthew King, “Bank Melli” HSBC OCC 8876130-136 at 133-136.