AML Probe Into Swedbank Turns Up $4.8M In Possible Violations
The Swedbank anti-money laundering (AML) probe by the law
firm Clifford Chance has uncovered 586 transactions totaling roughly $4.8 million
in possible U.S. sanction violations, Swedbank said in a press release on
Wednesday.
Sweden’s oldest bank will send a detailed report to the U.S.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The bank is planning a
press conference on March 23 to enable Clifford Chance to present the findings.
After the press conference, Göran Persson, chairman of the
board, and Jens Henriksson, president and chief executive officer, will discuss
the Clifford Chance findings.
The investigation reviewed the bank’s activities from 2007
through March 2019, and also looked into who their customers were and which
transactions were processed. The probe also investigated the bank’s handling of
internal and external information disclosures and its handling of issues
previously brought to its attention.
Of the potential OFAC violations, 95 percent were processed
from 2015 to 2016. Some 508 transactions were comprised of “salary payments and
payments associated with the operation of a vessel whose owner and operator are
located in Crimea and used Swedbank in the Baltics,” the release said.
“I have been clear regarding the fact that Clifford Chance
is to report any suspected sanction breaches that they may have come across in
the investigation,” said Henriksson. “This has now occurred. We are now
immediately proceeding with a self-report to OFAC. This shows that the bank’s
process for know your customer, transaction monitoring and internal governance
and control have had shortcomings. At the same time, it is some relief that it
regards a relatively low amount and transactions such as salary payments.”
Henriksson moved into the bank’s head role in October
following a money-laundering investigation that led to the ousting of CEO
Birgitte Bonnesen. She was fired in March just after Swedish police raided the
bank’s headquarters. Henriksson was previously the chief financial officer.
Swedbank has been linked to the money-laundering scandal at
Danske Bank, which said its Estonia branch was used to move $221 billion of
suspicious funds between 2007 and 2015. Swedbank then admitted in April that it
had failed to prevent the laundering and announced an internal investigation.
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