Despite American sanctions and a company ban, Binance processed client trades in Iran

Despite US sanctions and a company ban on doing business in Iran, the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange Binance reportedly continued to process client trades there.

According to a new investigation by Reuters, Binance continued to process client trades despite the US reimposing sanctions on Iran in 2018.

According to reports, the cryptocurrency exchange advised Iranian traders to close their accounts in November 2018 because Binance would no longer be allowed to do business there.

Seven traders claimed they "skirted the ban," according to the investigation, and used their Binance accounts up until September 2021. The only time those traders reportedly lost access to the platform was when Binance last year instituted new AML checks.

"There were some alternatives, but none of them were as good as Binance… it didn’t need identity verification, so we all used it," a trader in Tehran named Asal Alizade told Reuters.

Despite having previously emphasized that it "follows international sanction rules strictly" and had assembled a "global compliance task force, including world-renowned sanctions and law enforcement experts," Binance did not respond to the news agency's inquiries about Iran.

According to several lawyers who spoke to Reuters, Binance's decentralized structure shields it from direct US sanctions that forbid US companies from doing business in Iran.

The cause was that Binance's main exchange, not Binance US, was used by traders in Iran to transact business. However, additional sanctions against Binance are a possibility.

By fLEXI tEAM