Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- To see how the federal government
has pursued money-laundering cases against big banks over their
dealings with Iran and other countries under U.S. trade
sanctions, consider what happened when Barclays Plc and the
Justice Department were required to file reports describing the
U.K. bank’s cooperation under a settlement in 2010.
The deadline came and went. Barclays and the Justice
Department failed to comply, infuriating U.S. District Judge
Emmet Sullivan of Washington, who had ordered that the reports
be filed. “I am amazed that with all the legal talent before
the court that no one opened the order to read it,” he said. A
Justice Department attorney, Kevin Gerrity, told the judge he
couldn’t explain the lapse. Before approving Barclays’s
deferred-prosecution agreement, Sullivan called it a
“sweetheart deal.” Barclays paid $298 million, its core
business was unscathed, and no executives were charged.
