Orascom Telecom announces termination of Orabank in N.Korea

Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding (OTMT) announced Sunday that the board of directors of Orabank, an indirectly majority owned subsidiary of OTMT, has taken a board of directors decision to immediately start procedures of terminating the bank and officially advising the relevant authorities. 

As part of the termination process, all Orabank cash and liquid assets (short term assets and liabilities), including but not limited to loans, will be transferred to a designated subsidiary of OTMT in a manner that complies with all current sanctions of The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury and regulations noting that the loans will be transferred until maturity and no further banking operations will be carried out beyond this stage. 

All management operations
related to the Real estate assets in DPRK will be transferred to an OTMT designated entity.

The decision to terminate any banking operations in the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, comes as an “Event of Force Majeure” as a result of the OFAC sanctions enforced on DPRK becoming increasingly complex and having delved in the territory of financial sanctions. In addition, the challenges in complying with overlapping financial sanctions, and the potentially significant penalties and personal liability for breaches of regulations, have compelled the company to revert to this measure