Relationships with Iran then -- and now

In a former life, I was a compliance and loss prevention weenie at Citibank, now Citigroup.

Back then, a couple of decades ago, an entity called Bank Melli had been identified by the Treasury Department as an official bad guy, an agent of a hostile state, namely Iran.

Bank Melli had a fancy office on Park Avenue, accounts with Citi, and a fancy international clientele. I can remember jumping through hoops to close down everything Citi had that even SOUNDED like Bank Melli. We kept them on the "pink list" -- the official paper listing that circulated to all the branches -- as "No Further Dealings" for several years. That list had sufficient weight in the institution that if some poor branch person should happen to process a wire transfer to an entity on the pink list, or, God forbid open an account for such an entity, they could be confident that their job was history and they would have an appointment with the US Attorney of the Southern District of New York.

Yet, from what I heard upstairs, despite all of Citi's efforts at being good guys in this, we still got pretty badly abused for having dealt with Bank Melli BEFORE they made the "big time" -- the Treasury Department list.

Now, I understand that a Chinese firm that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange is the prime mover behind a multi-billion dollar loan to.........wait for this...........IRAN, for the purposes of developing their nuclear industry.

The NYSE, evidently having little sense of history, appears to have decided to stonewall, rather that summarily delist the firm in question. (This sort of action -- cessation of all business relations -- was evidently something that Citi was expected to have done voluntarily back in the old days, even before Bank Melli made the Treasury List).

HOWEVER, the Chinese firm is an oil company.

I could leave this right here right now, and I probably should, once I suggest that the likelihood that the Treasury Department, under the current administration, would put that company on "the list" is very low -- and if, going a step farther, bowing to political pressure, Treasury should happen to do add them to the list, the likelihood that the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York would be permitted to discreetly mention this fact to the New York Stock Exchange is remote in the extreme.

Friends of Cheney, you know.