Deutsche Bank fined in the UK for violating sanctions against Russia

Deutsche Bank has been fined by the British authorities for making payments to Okko, a Russian online movie theater linked to a sub-sanctioned structure. The British Financial Sanctions Authority (OFSI) has fined Deutsche Bank's London unit £165,000 ($221,000) for violating financial sanctions, the Financial Times reports.

In 2022, the bank processed two payments worth £636,000 ($852,000) to Okko, which at the time belonged to New Opportunities JSC, a company under U.K. sanctions, according to the regulator. Deutsche Bank relied in part on a third-party service provider to check for sanctions risks, but that provider did not identify Okko's connection to the sanctioned entity, OFSI noted. At the same time, the responsibility for compliance with the restrictions in any case remains with the bank, the regulator emphasized. Okko was owned by Sberbank, Russia's largest state-owned bank, from 2018 to May 2022, after which it was sold to New Opportunities. The UK imposed sanctions against the structure already in June 2022 after the war in Ukraine began.

Deutsche Bank said it had notified OFSI of the detected payments on its own, thanks to which it received a discount on the fine. The bank added that it continues to strengthen its system of control over compliance with the sanctions regime, the Financial Times quoted the bank's statement as saying.

Last month, Deutsche independently informed European regulators about possible sanctions violations by its retail division. The bank identified cases of accepting deposits over €100,000 from individuals subject to EU restrictions.

OFSI fines remain rare, the Financial Times specifies: since 2019, the British regulator has issued less than 20 such decisions. In March, OFSI also fined Apple's European division £390 thousand ($522 thousand) for payments to Okko, and in January - Bank of Scotland for £160 thousand ($214 thousand) for opening an account for a senior Russian government official who was included in the UK sanctions list.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor