September 5, 2014 | Quoted by Carol Matlack - Bloomberg Businessweek

Swift Justice: One Way to Make Putin Howl

Now some of Putin’s critics want to expel Russia from the network as punishment for his actions in Ukraine. Britain is pressing the European Union, whose laws govern the cooperative, to bar Russian banks from using Swift. Being frozen out could wreak havoc with Russian trade and investment. A similar penalty imposed in 2012 on Iran’s banks had “profound” economic effects in that country, says Mark Dubowitz of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which lobbied for the Iranian ban—the only such ban Swift has imposed. In talks with the West, “Iranian negotiators have systematically demanded that this is one of the sanctions that should be relieved first,” he says.

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Issues:

Iran Russia