JPMorgan Assailed by Russia as Bank Blocks Payment

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-01/jpmorgan-assailed-by-russian-ministry-for-blocking-transaction.html

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) blocked a payment involving a Russian embassy, a decision described as “illegal and absurd” by the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.
The biggest U.S. bank thwarted a remittance from the Russian embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan, to Sogaz Insurance Group “under the pretext of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the United States,” the ministry said yesterday in a statement on its website. Sogaz lists OAO Bank Rossiya, a St. Petersburg-based lender facing U.S. sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis, as a strategic partner on its website.
Interfering with the transaction was an “absolutely unacceptable, illegal and absurd decision,” Alexander Lukashevich, a ministry spokesman, said in the statement.