Danske Bank enters into an agreement after the money laundering scandal – accepts a fine of over DKK 20 billion
The case is updated.
After the massive money-laundering scandal that has unfolded in recent years based on Danske Bank’s then-existing business in Estonia, the bank has now reached an agreement with the authorities in the USA and its home country of Denmark.
Danske Bank pleads guilty to fraud against other banks. The bank will now pay a fine to American and Danish authorities of 2.06 billion dollars, equivalent to 20.2 billion Norwegian kroner.
In recent years, the bank’s branch in Estonia has been the subject of massive investigations both by external supervisors and internally within the bank. I have also hosted the banking group and the branch under investigation by international authorities. The case has its origin in transactions carried out by customers of the Estonian branch who were not resident in Estonia, but in Russia and other former Soviet states.
In a stock exchange announcement on Tuesday evening, the bank writes that it has entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice in the US, the US Financial Supervisory Authority and Danish ecocrime. The fine is covered by disposals that were made earlier in the harvest, when the bank took an accounting write-down of 14 billion Danish kroner. That sale came on top of 1.5 billion Danish kroner which was set aside in 2018.
In October, the bank’s CEO Carsten Egeriis stated:
– The discussions with American and Danish authorities about a decision in the Estonia case have reached a stage where Danske Bank can estimate the total financial consequence of a potential joint authority decision at a total of 15.5 billion Danish kroner.
Apologize “unreservedly”.
In the announcement on Tuesday evening, chairman Martin Blessing follows up with:
– The agreement marks the end of the investigations in the USA and Denmark. Ever since we were contacted by the authority, we have cooperated and we accept the terms of agreements. We express our unreserved regret and take full responsibility for the unacceptable mistakes and behavior of the past, which have nothing to do with Danske Bank today. We have learned from our mistakes, and we have taken the necessary measures to ensure that Danske Bank has robust measures in place to do everything possible to avoid these mistakes occurring again.
The case was first revealed by the Danish newspaper Berlingske in 2017, which revealed that billions of dollars had been sent from accounts close to the authoritarian regime in the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan via Danske Bank in Estonia to recipients in Europe and in tax havens.
Already summer 2018 stated then CEO Thomas Borgen in an interview in DN that he had considered retiring. Later that autumn, when the report after the bank’s own investigation was presented, he resigned. Borgen has this autumn been involved in a civil lawsuit against former and current shareholders has demanded compensation from Borgen of DKK 3.3 billion. The case went on for several weeks in a court in Lyngby, north of Copenhagen, in September this year. After Borgen was first acquitted, it became known on Monday that the plaintiffs appeal the verdict. (Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We like to share our stuff using links that lead directly to our pages. Copying or other forms of use of all or part of the content can only be done with written permission or as permitted by law. For additional terms see her.