A huge Qatari fine for the United Arab Emirates for this

The first bank of Abu Dhabi was fined 200 million riyals ($ 55 million) by the Qatar Financial Center (QFC) Regulatory Authority, charged with obstructing investigation.

In a statement posted on its website, the authorities said First Abu Dhabi Bank had blocked its investigation into "alleged manipulations of" manipulation of Qatari riyal, Qatari government securities and related financial instruments ".

"This fine reflects the seriousness of the breaches of regulatory requirements resulting from the deliberate and deliberate steps taken by the Bank to impede the investigation."

The Authority noted that First Abu Dhabi Bank "continued to fail to comply with legal obligations", including "the submission of documents and court orders", and considered that this continued to "impede the course of the investigation.

The Authority pointed out that it could "take further disciplinary action in the future if this proved to be necessary because the investigation led to the manipulation process of the market".

First Abu Dhabi Bank has the right to appeal the decision of the regulatory authority to take the aforementioned disciplinary action in connection with the obstruction of the investigation before the QFC regulatory court.

Since 2018, the Qatari government has been investigating suspicions of manipulation of the riyal exchange rate, the value of which fluctuated during the first months of the "siege" imposed by Qatar on June 5, in Saudi Arabia, on United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt.

In June, First Abu Dhabi Bank announced that it was abandoning its Qatar Financial Center (QFC) branch and shutting it down permanently.

On June 9, the QFC regulator imposed measures on First Abu Dhabi Bank, through its Doha branch, for failing to provide documents related to the country's investigations into the manipulation of its local currency.

The procedures were aimed at preventing the UAE bank from accepting new business and providing new services, or providing additional services to clients of existing agencies, following the restrictions previously imposed in March, under which Authority prohibited the bank from conducting business for its new customers.