Russia Today: NatWest To Close Russian Channel's UK Bank Accounts (bbc.com)

According to the editor-in-chief of state-run broadcaster Russia Today (RT), NatWest bank froze its account. Margarita Simonyan said, "They've closed our accounts in Britain. All our accounts. 'The decision is not subject to review.' Praise be to freedom of speech!" The Guardian adds: Russia has angrily accused Britain of trampling on freedom of speech after NatWest said it was closing down the bank accounts of the Kremlin TV channel Russia Today (RT). Russian MPs, the foreign ministry and human rights officials all condemned the move, and said the UK government was guilty of violating press freedom and of double standards. Simonyan said she had received a letter out of the blue from NatWest saying that it was pulling the plug on the broadcaster's accounts from mid-December. "We have recently undertaken a review of your banking arrangements with us and reached the conclusion that we will no longer provide these facilities," it said.

Comments

For those wondering...

[Rei]

... while the focus in the US has been more about the hacking of the DNC and similar stories, if I had to wager, I'd guess that this is part of the new sanctions threatened against Russia by John Kerry and Boris Johnson over the bombing of Aleppo.

Re:For those wondering...

[Xest]

No, this is part of a change to UK banking law. It occured a couple of years ago and it's effected all sorts of people and organisations including MPs themselves - the law of unintended consequences and all that.

Basically, the law now allows for banks to be held culpable if they facilitate money laundering, and as such banks have started pursuing a zero risk approach to the topic. Therefore everything from charities merely accused of corruption, funding terrorism and so forth, through to MPs that engage with corrupt foreign leaders even if simply engaging on political fact finding missions have had their and even their families bank accounts shutdown.

This is merely a continuance of that, Russia is basically the global capital of corruption. Given the rise of the many billionaire oligarchs post-soviet era I'm amazed it's actually taken the banks this long to decide that supplying banking for the a Russian government run organisation is too risky.

So no conspiracy theories are really necessary, nor would they make any sense. When the same law is resulting in MPs and their wives, kids, and grandmothers having their bank accounts closed down as it is RT it's a complete nonsense to suggest anything nefarious is going on. It really is just about a private company choosing to play it overly safe in the face of a change in the law.

Given the impact on MPs themselves, I'd be surprised if this particular law change lasts long at all. I believe this also enshrined into law US overreach too, as my father who has never had any link to, nor ever been to the US was asked to prove he was not a US citizen (I don't know how you prove you're not a US citizen, I can imagine how you prove you are one) and avoiding paying taxes whilst living overseas under the FATCA regulations. It rather sickens me that my father had to provide information on his personal finances as a British citzen to the US authorities to allow them to decide if he's evading American taxes or not when he's got nothing to do with America or face having his bank account shutdown in a similar manner.

Yeah, so long story short, basically they've gone over the top in trying to crackdown on fraud and tax evasion and everyone and their dog (probaby literally) in the UK is being hit right now. On the scale of organisations deserving to be hit by this law though because of probable real actual corruption I'd say RT is pretty high up the list relative to all the people who really are unquestionably innocent and are also suffering the same fate.

Really, despite all the rhetoric from Russia about censorship, sanctions and such there genuinely is no such story here. It's entirely about our banking regulations currently having been made a complete ass.

UK denies involvement

[bytesex]

https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

They are not "frozen" or "closed"

[aepervius]

They were given a two months notice. Whatever the reason. They can still access their assets and move them elsewhere. A PITA, yes, but a far cry from "frozen".