The bank’s internal investigation between 2016 and 2017 found that Huawei Technologies maintained close financial ties to a suspected front company in Iran called Skycom, years after it had purportedly sold the unit. At the time, the bank was trying to get the U.S. Department of Justice to drop charges against it for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. The findings of the probe inform the current criminal case against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. HSBC is not under investigation in the case.(Reuters)

Talking point: HSBC is one of the victims in the U.S. case against Meng, who is accused of conspiring to defraud it and other banks that cleared more than US$100 million of transactions involving Skycom. Meng remains under house arrest in Vancouver, awaiting extradition to the U.S.