...HONG KONG (Standard & Poor's) June 23, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that the issuer credit ratings on Bank of China Ltd. (BOC: A/Stable/A-1; cnAA+/cnA-1) are not affected by the news of Italy seeking indictments against the bank's Milan branch and some of its representatives in a money laundering probe. News reports over the weekend said the case involves money transfers of more than 4.5 billion euros from Italy to China. The bank said today that it has not received any formal documents from Italian prosecutors. News reports said police in Florence, Italy, discovered certain money transfers, which the police believed were related to various crimes, including counterfeiting, prostitution, labor exploitation, and tax evasion, and that the transfers involved money being sent to China 2007-2010. A Reuters report on June 20, 2015, said the Bank of China's Milan branch was involved in a significant part of those transfers. In our assessment, this event is unlikely to have...
