“The Association of Banks Warns Against False Accusations of Money Laundering: Protecting Lebanon’s Banking Sector”

2023-05-11 18:29:15

The Association of Banks warned once morest continuing accusations of money laundering, saying that “the wrong description in the accusation once morest banks increases the damage to the banking sector.”

In a statement issued on Thursday, the Association of Banks warned of the seriousness of the continued prosecution of some public prosecutions once morest some banks, “following changing the correct criminal description from an alleged offense by “concealing information” from the judiciary, as stated in Article 1, paragraph 3, item “b” of Law No. 306/ 2022, naming it and generalizing it in bad faith as an allegation of the crime of “money laundering”, which is an incorrect description that does not correspond to reality.

The association pointed out that naming the Public Prosecution Office because some banks refused to fulfill their requests that contradict the circular of the Public Prosecutor of Discrimination dated February 28, 2023 constitutes respect for Law No. 306/2022 and the principles related to public order that are binding on all criminal authorities. In the event that a certain Attorney General does not agree with the interpretation of Law No. 306 on which the Association of Banks relies, he can, if he wishes, prosecute the abstaining banks with the correct description of the crime, which is the crime of “concealing information from the judiciary” in the event that its elements are verified without absoluteness, and it is sufficient to attribute it to the texts that arrange Punishment, in the event that the crime is proven without giving a criminal description that is disproportionate to the act, taking advantage of the defects of Law 306 and the impurities of its wording.

And she continued in her statement, “As for the focus on the false description in the claim as “money laundering,” it leads to increased damage to the Lebanese banking sector since the beginning of the crisis in 2020, and the Lebanese state’s failure to pay its debts, without any coordination with creditors, and leads to the burden of foreign banks. Correspondent to stop dealing with Lebanese banks until an acquittal ruling is issued by the Courts of First Instance following several years, in which the false suspicion of the crime of money laundering has been completed by eliminating the banking sector, following the Lebanese state used the largest part of the deposits of depositors and sustained them in violation of the law from the Bank of Lebanon.

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