The Atlanta branch of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, which was previously enmeshed in allegations concerning sales to Iraq prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, has been fined by the Commerce Department for allegedly complying with the Arab boycott against Israel.
The department levied a $475,000 civil penalty on the bank branch for 104 alleged violations of anti-boycott provisions of the Export Administration Act and Regulations.
The bank agreed to pay the fine, but did not admit or deny that it had broken the law.
According to the Commerce Department, the violations were committed as the bank branch financed sales to Iraq between October 1987 and March 1990.
The department said that the bank branch provided 93 pieces of information to Iraqi banks about foreign companies’ relationships with Israel and others on the Arab League blacklist.
In addition, the department said that the bank branch failed on 11 occasions to report requests for boycott-related information from Arab League countries.
The controversial boycott, in effect since before Israel’s founding in 1948, has been under siege from the Clinton administration and others who feel that as Israel and its Arab neighbors move toward peace in the Middle East, the boycott is increasingly anachronistic.
In recent months, there have been signs of deterioration in the boycott, especially in the so-called “secondary” and “tertiary” boycotts directed at companies doing business with Israel. The so-called “primary” boycott is directed at Israel itself.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
