Post Magazine - FSA investigation finds Aon made payments to Burma

Post Magazine - FSA investigation finds Aon made payments to Burma
Friday 9th January 2009: 16:39

In its report into Aon's £5.25m fine over "failing to take reasonable care to organise and control its affairs responsibly and effectively, with adequate risk management systems", some payments pay have been made to third party in Burma, the regulator said.

"As a result of this weak control environment, a number of payments were made by Aon Ltd to Overseas Third Parties in Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Burma, Indonesia and Vietnam," said the FSA, noting that time was between mid-January 2005 and end-September 2007.

For dealing in business in Burma (also known as Myanmar), which is under US sanctions, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control guidelines say:

"Generally speaking, the exportation of financial services to Burma is prohibited. The term exportation or re-exportation of financial services to Burma is defined broadly to mean (1) the transfer of funds, directly or indirectly, from the US or by a US person, wherever located, to Burma, and (2) the provision, directly or indirectly, to persons in Burma of insurance services, investment or brokerage services, banking services, money remittance services; loans, guarantees, letters of credit or other extensions of credit; or the service of selling or redeeming traveller's checks, money orders and stored value. This defined term is unique to the Burma sanctions program.

"There are limited exceptions to the ban on the exportation of financial services. For example, payments can be made for certain licensed or exempt transactions, such as diplomatic payments and payments for goods exported to Burma. Under no circumstances can payments be made from blocked accounts on the books of a US bank."
Early last year Reinsurance revealed that Aon's rival MMC brokered aviation business into London after an investigation.