International banks may be under orders to freeze the assets of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi but they’re facing a slight problem. They don’t really know how to spell his name in English since there are 112 correct ways of transliterating it from Arabic (مُعَمَّر ٱلْقَذَّافِيّ).
From sanctions lists to news outlets to politicians, everybody seems to spell it differently. The U.S. Treasury Department alone has 12 different spellings.
The pressure is high, with banks fearful of falling afoul of justice officials. “While [Arabic transliteration] has always been a concern, it’s become more of a challenge given recent events,” said Vasilios Chrisos, a top U.S.-based compliance officer at Australian bank Macquarie Group Ltd.
For banks, identifying and closing accounts of officials or individuals on sanctions list is, in the best of circumstances, difficult.
So if banks are having serious trouble closing the accounts of officials even in the best of circumstances, does this mean Gaddafi’s assets will get through all of this untouched? If that’s the case, banks, I am disappoint.
