The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
Let’s suppose the SPV plays out ............France and Germany give it the green light for the sale of everything from Crude Oil to Anusol ... closely followed by a highly unlikely chain of events whereby ;
1] Fowler’s broker sources his two or three insurance companies to include reinsurance companies in the airside market place, with zero banking or underwriting ties to the US ...
2] We somehow source opex financing from a vehicle with zero banking ties to the US who are happy to provide funds....
3] As a significant shareholder, Canaccord Genuity Group Inc with offices in New York, Boston, Minneapolis,Nashville,San Francisco & Washington remain on board ,silently watching Fowler proceed with the contract, thus exposing themselves to untold US retribution...
4] We somehow manage to avoid any interface with Iran’s second largest ( sanctioned ) carrier whilst going about our business....
5] And the US decide to turn a blind eye to our US dollar transactions with IATA / SL ........................
Question ............ Which UK / EU bank will be facilitating our ongoing financial transactions with the SPV ,thus accommodating and repatriating our freshly rinsed and radioactive Iranian contract earnings whilst cocking a snook to the US ...........?
Note :-
To all posters , please feel free to offer a robust rebuttal of any of the afore mentioned points (o:
I furnished you with the source , can’t be ar$ed to post the link - google “ reuters useless humanitarian iranian SPV “ , it pops up the top of my page |o:
Fowler implies that these issues are by no means beyond our control as we’ve been told on several occasions now that we’re not dependent or reliant upon this SPV ....... and that our services are not sanctionable ....... yet we have his contradiction of....... “remaining hopeful that measures being put in place to protect EU companies against US extraterritorial actions would allow these projects to proceed.”
amongst those measures.......
The Blocking Statute - so useful not a single company stepped forward to use it ...
EIB funding - Iran being added to the list of countries eligible for EIB funding is complete farce as that vehicle is both incapable of lending due to its own regulatory compliance rules and is hamstrung by the threat of OFAC reprisal...
The SPV - the vehicle to facilitate the sale of Oil ,Gas and general commerce has evaporated to the point that its being openly touted as a reinforcement mechanism to assist with the sale of UNSANCTIONED humanitarian products ...
As an addition to the afore mentioned I recall being lectured by resident tub thumpers on how SWIFT would be telling Trump to f@#k off , that would be the same SWIFT based in Brussels,the independent non political cooperative governed under E.U. law ....... which did exactly what is was told by the US and cut off 50 odd Iranian banks from its network...
Lest we forget the indomitable ICJ , they ordered the US to lift restrictive sanctions - Trump responded by sticking two fingers up and telling em to go and spin ...........
Imo the E.U. have demonstrated themselves to be a waste of space in the face of US sanctions , simply running the clock down on Trumps tenure in a face saving operation .......... and Fowler’s hope that the E.U. measures would do the trick has proven to be misplaced ........ so why doesn’t he outline his alternative reality in which we’re not reliant upon any of the remedies contained within the SPV ............??????
He can’t which makes his assertion that we have the “ majority “ of issues addressed being as per usual ,disingenuous and deliberately misleading ..........|o:
Ps
Disappointing to see PF had no had new Keyguard contracts to share with us ....... )o:
At £14.00 pr hr those one man and his dog building site contracts all add up ........
Another cobblers Fowler update - why mention the SPV when we purportedly don’t need it ? .........according to the line he trotted out to Mike back in October ..........
“Dear Michael , We are not dependant or relying on the SPV although it will make life easier for us.”
Utter cr@p IMO ..............
with an additional 60m shares issued since our 5 year low ..........
As reported by Reuters , I find them to be a reliable news outlet.
What the Iranians or the Europeans say about the SPV being fit for trade is of supreme indifference to me so you’ll have to forgive me for having no interest in your list of quotes.
Regarding FATF , back in September/ October the EU was making all the right noises in respect of the SPV, talk of it being another tool in the box with the blocking ( chocolate teapot ) statute , so at that time the WSJ piece on the five European central banks was relevant, along with talk of the EIB being used as a funding vehicle - the EU went on to twist the EIBs arm to add Iran to a list of countries it will do business with in what was a public relations sham, fact is the EIB raises billions on the US bond markets so could never trade with Iran in the current climate ,and even if they wanted to they couldn’t lend money to any project in Iran until its fully compliant with FATF so how can it be on its list in the first place ?
In respect of the SPV let’s suppose for a moment the highly unlikely scenario in which Mogherini finds a European leader ( or two ) who are dumb enough to allow his or her finance minister to commit economic suicide by hosting the SPV to facilitate the sale of what it was intended for .... oil and gas and to free up all aspects of trade with Iran for European commerce - (not to facilitate the sale of paracetamol and wind eez ) ..... The Trump administration have made it crystal clear they’ll take action against anyone that uses it , which is precisely why we see the EU sounding out the US as to what they will and won’t allow the SPV to be used for , like I said ,hardly sticking two fingers up to the US .........
It’s clear to me that its all talk on the part of the EU ,the blocking statute is useless, the EIB cant lend money to Iran or any business dealing with Iran, and the SPV wont enable oil sales or trade so where next ?
Mike
I understand what folk would like the SPV to do, however it’s been widely reported that it will be for humanitarian and food sales alone , largely because the EU believe the that’s all the US will tolerate - hardly sticking two fingers up to the US /o:
“the company has in any case confirmed that the services that WSG are to provide fall outside of the scope of the current sanctions “
for as long as Trumps position on Iran remains how are our services being out-with of sanctions of any significance ? Its meaningless imo , you had a motor car with no insurance, no money for fuel and no licence to use it would it be of any use to you ?
No – if we’re now hanging our hat on the Iranians meeting those 12 conditions then I suspect we’ll be in for a wait of the East African variety – In respect of the SPV I seem to recall Mogherini selling it as the vehicle by which Iranian oil would be sold and the wheels of commerce greased – appears it’s been watered down to facilitate the sale of humanitarian ( a great deal of which are exempt from sanctions ) goods so quite how this helps WSG is lost on me ……./o:
Reference your 23.15 - couldn’t agree more , who indeed will be able to resolve any of the issues we haven’t been able to , as you quite rightly point out they will all have the same banking finance and insurance issues that we have - and will continue to have until the US change policy |o:
My interpretation of that piece is the termination is ok per se ; it’s the termination without notice which has been ruled against !
Do you believe that Deutsche Telekom will cock a snook to US sanctions and continue commerce in Iran ?
The cure for advanced gullibility is to go to sleep and consider matters again the next day.......!
Iconic Bridge £1m - America’s Consultancy $4.4m signed contracts , neither of which produced a bean - Mexican Franchise should have been a minimum £14m over the term - nowt ...... |o:
Quite - February came and went and no one gave a rats a$$ outside of the FATF , and yes they extended to June which has been extended to October which , will may well get extended to February 19 - however you imply because nowt came of it in Feb that it’s no big deal - ordinarily I’d concur , however the landscape has changed significantly - in February 2018 our banking requirements would have been facilitated by some obscure network of German cooperative banks - as you know that’s no longer the case as their Iranian counterparts find themselves sanctioned .
My understanding is that one of the options being considered ( happy to be corrected ) is reliant upon a number of European Central Banks engaging with the afore mentioned German cooperative banks who will act as “gateway banks “ who will facilitate trade with a handful of private Iranian banks who have ; thus far escaped secondary sanctions under executive order 13599 as they were afforded a “carve out” to facilitate medical and humanitarian trade - it’s worth noting that Trump could scupper this loophole depending on what side of the bed he climbs out of on any given morning /o:
The positive in my post which should be embraced is that should Iran comply ( and I know this is where the Europeans are working very hard with Iran ) , it will bring their banking system in to international compliance along side the other 185 countries in the world who enjoy unfettered access to the worlds financial system - once / if compliant this will give the ECB’s complete legitimacy to engage as although the ICJ is completely toothless , it will rule in Irans favour (o: ........If they don’t comply the ECB,s won’t be coming out to play anytime soon .
The ball is in the Iranians court |o:
ETin - plenty of positives , well done - though you’ll have to forgive me for not getting too excited about Fowlers word.
Correct re the FATF and February , however although the link I posted was from MEE , it can be corroborated on the FATF website - all factual and relevant - |o:
Its not spin its fact, and Its not digging deep either , it’s called I research , on the back of which I have an awful habit of calling a spade a spade |o:
And if i’m not posting positives it doesn’t follow that I’m not on the look out for them - it’s just that there thin on the ground - besides I thought my13.52 was positive - it just hinges on the outcome of my 12.16 |o:
“ No country, including UK, has fully implemented the FATF action plan, ever.”
The UK , along with most of the western world have never had an action plan to implement, there are only two actions plans in existence, one belongs to the DRPK , the other one belongs to Iran , it’s theirs , they own it , completely bespoke to their short comings in respect of AML & CFT compliance , they proposed the plan back in 2016 and have failed to implement it .....
June 2018
“ The FATF is disappointed with Iran’s failure to implement its action plan to address its significant AML/CFT deficiencies. The Iranian government’s continued efforts to finalize and pass amendments to its AML and CFT laws, the FATF decided at its meeting this week to continue the suspension of counter-measures.
The FATF urgently expects Iran to proceed swiftly in the reform path to ensure that it addresses all of the remaining items in its Action Plan by completing and implementing the necessary AML/CFT reforms, in particular enacting the necessary legislation. We expect Iran to enact amendments to its AML and CFT laws and ratify the Palermo and TF Conventions in full compliance with the FATF Standards by October 2018, otherwise, the FATF will decide upon appropriate and necessary actions at that time.
Iran will remain on the FATF Public Statement until the full Action Plan has been completed.
Until Iran implements the measures required to address the deficiencies identified in the Action Plan, the FATF will remain concerned with the terrorist financing risk emanating from Iran and the threat this poses to the international financial system.
The FATF, therefore, calls on its members and urges all jurisdictions to continue to advise their financial institutions to apply enhanced due diligence to business relationships and transactions with natural and legal persons from Iran, consistent with FATF Recommendation 19. “
BTW - FAFT don't have the authority to impose sanctions on any country ......
Really !
“As Laurence Norman of the Wall Street Journal has reported, five European central banks have indicated they would consider opening direct payment channels with the Central Bank of Iran to enable financial ties in the face of U.S. secondary sanctions—but fully implementing the FATF action plan is a precondition.
Irrespective of ones opinion on any potential outcome in Iran – diddly squat will happen until this has been addressed , which has nowt to do with Trump or sanctions – 14th - 19th October is the FATF plenary meeting – if the Iranians don’t get their house in order by then the next meeting will be 17th – 22nd February 2019 …….
https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/storm-moving-towards-iran-fatf-deadline-looms-974467221