The man with your books

When Abdul Hafiz Mansour says 2011 was an “active” year, he leaves the impression that an off-the-record interview would yield a coarser word choice. As the “Secretary” of the Bank du Liban’s Special Investigation Committee (SIC), Mansour has the task of rebuilding confidence in the Lebanese banking sector’s ability to deal with money laundering, following the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) crisis in early 2011. Along the way he has faced constant pressure from American authorities, including new legislation that could undermine Lebanon’s banking secrecy, and a slow-moving Lebanese legislature that has stalled implementation of laws conforming to international banking standards. He believes the LCB crisis that began in February 2011 when the United States Department of the Treasury labeled LCB as ‘non-compliant’ is  finally over.  But Executive notes that critics have raised concerns about the process by which many of LCB’s assets were acquired by Societe Generale de Banque au