The UK’s financial regulator has provisionally fined Banque Havilland £10mn and plans to ban its former London chief executive and two other ex-employees for their role in a 2017 plan to devalue Qatar’s currency after the Gulf state was embargoed by its neighbours.
The Financial Conduct Authority said on Friday that the Luxembourg-based bank “acted without integrity” by disseminating a document with manipulative trading strategies. These aimed to create a false impression around the market in Qatar’s bonds, breaking the riyal’s peg to the US dollar and “thereby harming the economy of Qatar”, according to the FCA.
The FCA found that tactics included trying to weaken Qatar’s financial position in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup, which the Gulf state hosted and for which it had committed $200bn in infrastructure spending.
Banque Havilland intended to present the document to representatives of countries seeking to put economic pressure on Qatar, including the United Arab Emirates, to market its services, according to the regulatory findings. A copy of the bank’s document was provided to a representative of an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, the FCA added.
Along with bans from financial services, the FCA plans on fining Edmund Rowland, the former chief executive of the London branch, £352,000; David Weller, a former senior manager, £54,000; and Vladimir Bolelyy, a former employee, £14,200.
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