Countries like France, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Holland and Belgium, and some others, could reject outright the anti-democratic and illegal "extraterritoriality" of the laws dictated by the U.S. Congress, and yet they do not. On the contrary, they accept without complaint this humiliating subjugation of national sovereignty. The laws of the European countries are not applicable in the United States, but those of the United States are imposed, as befits an empire, almost everywhere in the world. An extreme example, but not the only one, is what happened with France's main bank, BNP Paribas, which in June 2014 was condemned to pay a fine of 8,834 million dollars (€6,450 million) for disregarding the economic sanctions imposed against Sudan, Iran and Cuba. Not only that: on orders from the U.S. Treasury Department, BNP Paribas had to dismiss 13 officials involved in those operations and the bank's head of international operations.