(Bloomberg) — In the summertime of 2018, a senior anti money-laundering official at Swedbank AB appeared anxious as he learn studies that its competitor Danske Financial institution A/S could possibly be fined by U.S. authorities for alleged crimes within the Baltics.
“I’m afraid that if they’re sentenced, we will probably be in focus,” he wrote in an e-mail to then-Chief Compliance Officer Cecilia Hernqvist. She replied: “Fingers crossed.”
Danske, which has since admitted dealing with suspicious funds in considered one of Europe’s largest-ever cash laundering scandals, continues to be awaiting judgement by regulators within the U.S. However Swedbank executives have been proper to be involved. Within the months that adopted, Swedbank was additionally sucked into the maelstrom of the Nordic-wide revelations of soiled cash flows from the previous Soviet Union.
The lender has been fined in Sweden and stays beneath investigation by U.S. authorities.
E mail exchanges, studies and witness testimonies launched this week by Sweden’s Financial Crime Authority that run to virtually 4,000 pages add to proof that some Swedbank managers have been conscious of serious hyperlinks to the potential laundering, together with via Danske. But when pressed by outsiders, former Chief Govt Birgitte Bonnesen seemed to be lower than forthcoming about these connections.
The paperwork (written largely in Swedish) have been made public as a part of the indictment in opposition to Bonnesen for severe fraud. The ex-CEO can also be accused of exposing insider info when on Feb. 18, 2019, she gave the financial institution’s greatest traders advance discover of an investigative program aired by the general public broadcaster two days later. These revelations despatched the lender’s inventory tanking, losses the shares have but to get well.
Bonnesen, who was ousted in March 2019 after steering the financial institution for 3 years, denies the fees.
“There isn’t any doubt that Birgitte Bonnesen was made a scapegoat,” her legal professionals Per Samuelson and Christina Bergenstein, with authorized agency SSW, stated within the submitting. They described her statements as “utterly regular parts of her work as CEO,” including “it was merely her obligation to remark.”
Bonnesen had acquired studies drafted by the financial institution’s compliance officers on publicity to Danske — described by its creator in an e-mail as “not wanting good” — in July of 2018 and a last report in September of that 12 months, based on the investigation report launched this week. However within the months that adopted, she advised Swedish media the financial institution “discovered nothing” when investigating transactions with Danske.
She additionally careworn in different interviews, statements and at quarterly earnings calls with analysts that Swedbank’s enterprise mannequin was solely completely different from Danske’s and never centered on non-resident shoppers of the Baltics, which included these usually implicated in laundering.
Swedish authorities in 2020 fined Swedbank a document 4 billion kronor ($440 million) for breaching money-laundering guidelines. Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri reported in December 2020 that federal authorities within the U.S., together with the Justice Division, the FBI and a federal prosecutor’s workplace in New York are probing Nordic banks together with Swedbank.
Unni Jerndal, a spokeswoman for the Stockholm-based lender, declined to touch upon the launched paperwork, saying these “concern historic info in a authorized course of that doesn’t contain the financial institution,” and wouldn’t specify the standing of any ongoing probes.
Usually regarded a mannequin of profitable transition from communism, the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been swift to cut back financial dependence on their former Soviet overlord after regaining independence in 1991. But the area remained a window for capital flight from Russia to the West lengthy after the Nordic lenders got here to dominate its monetary sector.
Banks transfered cash from east to west, usually in {dollars}, and sometimes with murky origins in what was a widely-touted enterprise mannequin. That started to alter in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea — triggering U.S. sanctions and nearer scrutiny of economic flows. Extra scandals – such because the “Russian Laundromat” – emerged and lenders have been shut. The U.S. Treasury proposed banning ABLV from the American monetary system, designating it as a major money-laundering concern in February 2018, sparking its demise. ABLV denied the accusations.
When Danske revealed in September 2018, that “a big half” of the 200 billion euros ($227 billion) in flows dealt with by the financial institution between 2007 and 2015 have been suspect, the information triggered a surge in worldwide scrutiny that additionally engulfed Deutsche Financial institution AG, the principle correspondent financial institution for Danske’s Estonian unit.
The newly revealed Swedbank paperwork seemingly level to repeated situations through which Swedbank’s administration tried to minimize its potential function in cash laundering.
Swedbank had been conscious of shortcomings at its Baltic operations already in 2016, when an inside compliance report by Hernqvist’s predecessor pointed to issues in threat evaluation, know-your-client processes in addition to screening and transaction monitoring. The division’s consideration turned to the area in 2015, and its investigation discovered “moderately severe shortcomings,” together with transaction monitoring that was achieved by merely going via Excel spreadsheets, Hernqvist’s predecessor advised the police in September 2019.
In 2017, an investigation for the financial institution by regulation agency Erling Grimstad confirmed a “excessive threat of widespread cash laundering” and “important threat of Swedbank involvement in different felony exercise because the financial institution has no management of cash circulate out and in of accounts,” triggering a purge of high-risk shoppers that 12 months.
One other report commissioned from Grimstad on the finish of 2018 stated it discovered “a number of related dangers in Swedbank Estonia” as these recognized at Danske’s native unit, including there have been “main breaches” of core anti money-laundering obligations at Swedbank Estonia.
“Oh f*ck, this isn’t sparing on Estonia,” a senior Swedbank compliance officer stated in an e-mail to a colleague on Dec. 13, 2018. “Level of no return…nasty occasions forward.”
Through the years, Swedbank had additionally attracted the suspicion of U.S. authorities.
In 2016, the New York Division of Monetary Providers had requested Swedbank’s U.S. operation for particulars about its publicity to shoppers of Mossack Fonseca & Co., the regulation agency whose leaked recordsdata put a highlight on offshore finance in what grew to become often called the Panama papers.
One other letter from DFS in 2018 requested particulars on publicity for “the worldwide operations of Swedbank” to the regulation agency, the indictment paperwork launched this week present. Hernqvist, the chief compliance officer on the time, excluded the lender’s Baltic subsidiaries from the financial institution’s response, based on an e-mail dated Feb. 23, 2018. A month later, a senior officer wrote “Simply so you recognize, we do have a whole lot of hits on MF within the Baltics.” Hernqvist replied, “That’s why I wished to get them out of the scope :)”.
Hernqvist, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, declined to remark when reached by Bloomberg Information by way of LinkedIn.
Hernqvist additionally stated in an e-mail to Bonnesen dated Sept. 23, 2018, that the financial institution hadn’t achieved a lot to forestall cash laundering up to now and “I’m afraid there could also be a whole lot of outdated/historic stuff so I feel we needs to be a bit cautious.”
The financial institution’s senior administration “failed to determine” clear traces of accountability for stopping doubtful flows, was the conclusion of an audit by regulation agency Clifford Probability revealed in March 2020, commissioned by Swedbank. It discovered that between 2007 and 2019 consumer transactions totaling $40 billion primarily at Swedbank’s Estonian unit represented a “excessive threat” of cash laundering.