The New York branch of a Kuwaiti bank has been assessed the largest monetary penalty ever imposed for violating filing requirements of the anti-boycott provisions of the U.S. Export Administration Act, the U.S. Commerce Department has announced.
CBK-NY, the New York branch of the Commercial Bank of Kuwait, agreed to pay $383,100 in civil penalties for 146 alleged violations, said Douglas Lavin, acting assistant secretary for export.
From February 1986 to April 1988, the bank allegedly received requests from various banks in Kuwait to engage in activities that would further the boycott against Israel, but it failed to report the requests “in a timely manner” to the Commerce Department.
The department’s Office of Antiboycott Compliance discovered the violations during a routine audit of the New York bank in 1988.
As is usual in anti-boycott violations, the company agreed to pay the civil fine, while neither admitting nor denying the alleged violations.
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