Yet another Shakespearean banking tragedy opened this week, with Standard Chartered starring this time as the villainous rogue. The day of reckoning will be Wednesday, when the New York Department of Financial Services will hear the bank's defence against charges of hiding the involvement of Iranian government clients in 60,000 wire transactions, worth at least $250bn. Call it the Ides of August.
上周银行业又有一出莎士比亚悲剧上演，此次扮演卑鄙恶棍的是渣打银行(Standard Chartered)。"审判日"就是周三（8月15日），届时纽约州金融服务局(New York state Department of Financial Services)将听取渣打的辩护证词，该行此前被控隐瞒参与伊朗政府客户约6万笔、至少价值2500亿美元的电汇交易。此次事件完全称得上是"八月风云"。
That hearing will focus on "wire stripping". Standard Chartered employees allegedly hid the fact that wire transfers to New York were coming from Iranian government-owned institutions by stripping out references to Iran from wire instructions. Standard Chartered called this a "repair procedure," and insists it was permitted.
法庭聆讯将以"电汇代码消除"(wire stripping)为焦点。渣打员工涉嫌通过删除电汇指令中提到伊朗的部分，隐瞒汇往纽约的款项来自伊朗政府下属机构的事实。渣打将此类操作称作"修正流程"，并坚称其符合法规要求。
Media commentators and bank analysts have suggested that the evil actors in this drama were the employees who did the "repairs" and the managers who supervised them. Others have absolved Standard Chartered, accepting the bank's argument that the scope of wrongdoing was minimal and had nothing to do with terrorism. But the New York regulators' order centres on the bank's general counsel and compliance offices. This focus on lawyers is important.
媒体评论员和银行分析师指出，在这出戏中扮演恶人的演员是那些执行"修正"程序的员工以及管理他们的上级经理。其他人则认为渣打无罪，接受该行有关违规操作的范围极小以及绝不牵涉恐怖主义的说辞。但纽约州监管当局的报告将矛头对准了该行法律总顾问办公室以及合规办公室。这种对银行内部律师的关注引人回味。
Among the most incriminating documents cited in the order are memoranda and emails from the bank's attorneys, who allegedly advised that wire instructions should not identify the names of Iranian clients because that would trigger scrutiny in New York. Legal and compliance officers were allegedly involved in a plan called Project Gazelle, which sought to build the bank's business with Iranian clients without exposing the New York branch "to the risk of a breach of sanctions". Given these allegations, the opening line at next week's hearing might be: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
报告引用的最能将渣打治罪的文件之一，是渣打律师团队的备忘录和电子邮件，他们涉嫌建议在电汇指令中不列明伊朗客户的名称，因为这可能触发来自纽约监管当局的检查。该行法律及合规主管则被指控参与"瞪羚计划"(Project Gazelle)，该计划的目的是在不给纽约分行带来"违反制裁禁令风险"的情况下，建立与伊朗客户的业务往来。鉴于以上指控内容，本周听证会的开场白有可能是："我们要做的第一件事，是把律师通通干掉。"
Indeed, the order puts the bank's senior attorneys and compliance officers at the heart of the wire stripping scheme, even when outside counsel advised otherwise. As early as 1995, soon after President Bill Clinton announced economic sanctions against Iran, the bank's general counsel allegedly "embraced a framework for regulatory evasion". He allegedly strategised about how to avoid scrutiny by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, known as OFAC, and instructed employees that a memorandum describing the plan to avoid regulatory compliance was "highly confidential and MUST NOT be sent to the US".
报告实际上将渣打的高级律师以及合规主管们置于电汇代码消除阴谋的核心，而当时该行的外部法律顾问曾给出与内部律师相反的意见。报告指出，早在1995年，当时的美国总统比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)宣布对伊朗实施经济制裁后不久，渣打的法律总顾问就"采纳了一整套逃避监管的方案"。据称，他设计了躲避外国资产控制办公室（Office of Foreign Assets Control，简称OFAC）检查的策略，并向手下员工指示，一份描述该行逃避监管合规要求计划的备忘录是"高度机密并且绝不能被传至美国"。
We know bankers can be ruthless when pursuing profits. But bank lawyers are not supposed to think like bankers. Decades ago, the general counsel of a bank thought more about ethics than efficiency. But today's in-house counsel are often profit centres, fonts of wisdom on how to avoid accounting rules, cut taxes and maintain the secrecy of dubious practices. One reason for the recent wave of abuses at big banks is that their in-house lawyers have been more focused on speed and profit than on right and wrong.
我们都知道银行家在追求利润时可能变得冷酷无情。但银行律师的想法不应与银行家一致。几十年前，一家银行的法律总顾问对道德的重视程度甚于效率。但如今，内部法律顾问部门常常变成了利润中心，为如何规避会计准则、少交税以及隐瞒可疑操作出谋划策。近年来大型银行纷纷爆出违规丑闻的一大原因在于，它们的内部律师团队关注效率和利润甚于关注对错本身。
It is now apparent that speed was a concern of Standard Chartered's lawyers: if the wire instructions had contained references to Iran, they probably would have been investigated and so delayed. The bank's chief legal and compliance officer for its wholesale banking business apparently called the risk of such delays a "deal-breaker" in efforts to develop new business.
我们现在可以清楚看出，交易速度是渣打律师团队的关注重点之一：如果电汇指令中包含提到伊朗的语句，则很可能受到调查进而导致交易延迟。该行批发银行业务部门的首席法律与合规官直白地表示，对于该行拓展新业务的努力而言，此类交易延迟风险简直就是"交易杀手"。
Standard Chartered's lawyers also allegedly "outsource[ed] the entire OFAC compliance process for the New York branch to Chennai, India, with no evidence of any oversight or communication between the Chennai and the New York offices". Inadequately trained due diligence staff allegedly had simultaneous responsibility for both "repair procedures" and "compliance". The regulators called this dual role "a paradoxical task to say the least". Allegedly, when staff in India found questionable disclosures, they contacted clients, who then sent "repaired" wires stripped of any references to Iran. Even if that process proves to have been legal, it was due diligence in name only.
渣打律师团队还涉嫌"将纽约分行的整个OFAC合规流程外包到印度钦奈(Chennai)，并且没有证据显示其曾履行过监督职责，或钦奈方面与纽约分行之间进行过任何沟通"。报告称，渣打让未受过充分培训的尽职调查人员同时负责"修正流程"和"合规"。纽约州监管当局表示，这种双重角色"说得最轻也构成了职责冲突"。报告还指出，当渣打驻印度员工发现有问题的信息后，他们与客户取得了联系，客户随后发出了剔除任何与伊朗有关语句的"修正版"电文。即使这一流程被证明为合法，该行的尽职调查也不过空有其名而已。
As recent debacles at Barclays, HSBC and now Standard Chartered demonstrate, employees of big global banks increasingly lack a moral compass. Some general counsels and compliance officers do provide ethical guidance. But many are facilitators or loophole instructors, there to show employees the best way to avoid the law. Not even mafia lawyers go that far; unlike many bankers, mobsters understand the value of an impartial consigliere who will tell them when to stop.
近期巴克莱银行(Barclays)、汇丰银行(HSBC)以及渣打爆出的一系列丑闻表明，大型跨国银行的员工越来越缺乏道德方向感。确实有一些银行的法律总顾问和合规主管在提供道德指引。但还有许多人是违规行为的协助者或者钻漏洞方面的指导员，其存在的意义不过是教给员工逃避法律约束的最佳方式。黑帮律师都不至于如此缺乏底线；与很多银行家不同，黑帮成员明白一位公正的法律顾问的价值，因为他能够告诉他们何时应该停手。
Bank executives have recently been criticised and even replaced, and more heads will roll. The Standard Chartered saga is not over: the bank allegedly orchestrated similar schemes in Sudan, Myanmar and Libya. But as the drama unfolds, many in the audience will ask: who were the true villains? The bankers? Or "yes men" lawyers who may have enabled and emboldened them?
近期银行管理层备受指责，部分甚至遭到撤换，未来还将有更多的人受到惩罚。渣打的故事并未就此结束：该行还被指控在苏丹、缅甸以及利比亚策划了类似阴谋。但随着戏剧情节的推进，很多观众会问：谁是真正的恶人？是银行家吗？还是那些给银行家出谋划策和壮胆的"好好先生"律师们？
Lawyers are supposed to be the grown-ups at the party, professionals who guide their colleagues and tell them what they can and cannot do. They should be ombudsmen, not enablers. One lesson from recent scandals is that banks need reliably independent in-house counsel, with a strong moral backbone.
律师们本应是派对上的成年人，是为自己的同事提供指引、告诉他们哪些能做哪些不能做的专业人士。他们应是监察员，而不是助纣为虐者。我们从近期丑闻中得到的一大教训是，银行需要足够独立、具备坚定道德观的内部法律顾问。