Settlement spotlights upstart N.Y. regulator

Last week, Standard Chartered paid $340 million to New York state’s Department of Financial Services to settle allegations that it schemed with the Iranian government to launder $250 billion. Federal regulators had reportedly been investigating the same allegations, but it was a state regulator who got the bank to pay up. How did Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial services, manage to jump ahead of the feds, threaten to take away a global bank’s state license and secure a settlement that will put millions of dollars into a general fund that New York could desperately use?