US prosecutors have asked a federal court to dismiss charges against Turkish bank Halkbank over Iran sanctions violations after the bank completed a compliance review.
The move comes after a March deferred prosecution agreement in which the US Justice Department highlighted the diplomatic benefits of resolving the case.
US prosecutors had charged Halkbank with six counts of fraud, money-laundering and sanctions offenses in 2019 over suspicions it was involved in a scheme to launder billions of dollars' worth of Iranian oil and natural gas proceeds.
Halkbank enlisted a Turkish affiliate of accounting firm Ernst & Young to review its compliance program, which identified no findings of noncompliance.
The review discovered that a customer had made transaction requests related to Iran, but the bank did not process any of them.
