A federal judge in New York on Wednesday dismissed the US Justice Department’s criminal case against Turkey’s state-run Halkbank after President Donald Trump’s administration reached a deal with the lender, ending a prosecution that began in 2019, Reuters reported.
US District Judge Richard Berman, who is based in Manhattan, approved the dismissal at a hearing on Wednesday.
Halkbank said in a statement to Turkey’s Public Disclosure Platform (KAP) that the court had approved the dismissal of the criminal case against the bank in the United States.
“With this, the criminal case that had continued for years against our bank in the US has been definitively and finally closed,” the bank said.
The agreement, announced in March, was expected to remove a long-running source of tension between Turkey and the United States.
Halkbank shares rose sharply on the İstanbul stock exchange after the deal was announced.
Halkbank was charged during Trump’s first term in office with helping Iran evade US sanctions.
Prosecutors accused the bank of secretly moving $20 billion in restricted Iranian funds, converting oil revenue into gold and cash to benefit Iranian interests and using fake food shipments to justify transfers of oil proceeds.
The bank pleaded not guilty and did not admit wrongdoing under the agreement. No money changed hands as part of the deal.
The Justice Department said dropping the prosecution would serve US interests in curbing support for Iran. Under the agreement Halkbank is barred from entering transactions that benefit Iran and must work with a monitor to review its sanctions and anti-money laundering compliance.
After the deal was announced in March, Berman paused the case for 90 days to give Halkbank time to show that it was complying with the terms. Halkbank hired Ernst & Young to review its compliance policies.
The case moved through several US courts over the years.
Halkbank had argued that as a Turkish state-owned bank, it should be immune from prosecution in another country’s courts. The US Supreme Court in October let stand a lower court decision that allowed the case to proceed.
The settlement was announced after the Iran war began in February.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had repeatedly criticized the Halkbank case, calling it unlawful and “ugly.”
After meeting with Trump last year, Erdoğan said he hoped the case would be resolved, adding in October that Trump had told him during a September White House meeting and in a later phone call that “the Halkbank problem is finished for us.”
Relations between Turkey and the United States have improved since Trump returned to the presidency last year, with both governments describing ties between the NATO allies more positively than in previous years.