cibc

With large international operations, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) is the 53rd biggest bank in the world.

Much of the capital used to establish the current incarnation of CIBC came from supplying to the Caribbean slave colonies. The Halifax Banking Company was the first bank in Nova Scotia and the founding unit of today’s CIBC. The Halifax Banking Company’s leading shareholder and initial president, Enos Collins, was a ship owner, who made his wealth by bringing high-protein, salty Atlantic cod to the Caribbean to keep hundreds of thousands of “enslaved people working 16 hours a day.” He was also a privateer, licensed by the state to seize enemy boats during wartime. Considered one of the richest men in North America by the end of his life, a biography notes how Collins recalled, “there were many things that happened [during his time in the West Indies] that we don’t care to talk about.” The book speculates that, as a privateer in the Caribbean during the early 1800s, he likely captured and resold slaves.

Since the early 1900s, CIBC has been well connected in Washington. According to Nationalization of Guyana’s Bauxite, since US national banks were not allowed to establish foreign branches until 1914, “the CIBC acted for the U.S. government after the U.S. came into possession of the Philippines following the Spanish-American war.” During the 1910-17 Mexican Revolution, CIBC (as well as the Bank of Montréal and Canadian-owned Monterey Tramways, Light and Power Company) asked Washington to help protect its interests in Mexico.

CIBC has been a popular option among affluent and powerful individuals worldwide. At the end of the 1970s, CIBC loaned money to companies owned by Iran’s brutal Shah. In Africa, the “Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is known as the bank of many African dignitaries,” according to economist Thierry Godefroy and legal expert Pierre Lascoumes. French Africa specialist François-Xavier Verschave also wrote, “the nefarious CIBC, favourite bank of African oil dictators.” In 1997, for instance, the CIBC was the conduit of a US$22 million transfer from Geneva to the British Virgin Islands for a company owned by Gabonese dictator Omar Bongo. According to documents released in the Panama Papers leak, CIBC registered 632 companies and private foundations in the offshore tax haven of the Bahamas between 1990 and 2016.