(New York Times): Standard Chartered, the British bank, has agreed to pay New York’s top banking regulator $340 million to settle claims that it laundered hundreds of billions of dollars in tainted money for Iran and lied to regulators. The agreement is a victory for Benjamin M. Lawsky and his 10-month old agency, the New York Department of Financial Services, which took on the bank alone in charging that it schemed for nearly a decade with Iran to hide from regulators 60,000 transactions worth $250 billion. Some federal authorities worry the deal has the potential to undercut a sweeping settlement between the bank and federal regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. 

They are also investigating Standard Chartered, a 150-year-old bank based in London with operations across the globe.

The $340 million deal is a huge amount for a single state regulator, and it falls near the middle of the collective settlements that the Justice Department and the Manhattan district attorney have reached with other global banks in recent years over money laundering charges, from $619 million with ING bank in June to $298 million with Barclays in 2010.

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