Under fire Danske Bank faces fresh money laundering
inquiry
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[September 20, 2018]
By Teis Jensen
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danske Bank <DANSKE.CO>
faced a new Danish money laundering inquiry on Thursday as political
anger spread over a scandal involving 200 billion euros ($234 billion)
in payments, many of which were suspicious, through Estonia.
Chief Executive Thomas Borgen resigned on Wednesday after an
investigation commissioned by Danske Bank exposed control and compliance
failings, fuelling calls for more stringent European Union rules after
several such scandals.
The bank's report sparked vocal political criticism and prompted
Denmark's Financial Services Authority (FSA) to revisit a case which it
had put on ice earlier this year, but is reported to have attracted the
attention of U.S. authorities.
"We're reopening the investigation of the bank that we initially closed
in May," FSA head Jesper Berg told Danish broadcaster TV2.

In May an FSA report said it had found "serious weaknesses" in the
bank's governance and demanded reforms, as well imposing reprimands and
a higher capital requirement.
Berg said the FSA would use the new information from Danske Bank's
report and focus on identifying a legal responsibility.
In an indication of the penalties such lapses can entail, Dutch
financial group ING <INGA.AS> agreed to pay 775 million euros this month
after money laundering through its accounts.
One of the main factors behind a dramatic fall in Danske Bank's share
price this year is investor concern that it could have broken U.S.
sanctions, which could entail billions of dollars in penalties.
Danske Bank said on Wednesday it had not so far found any breach of
sanctions, while Chairman Ole Andersen said it had assessed whether it
had violated U.S. laws, but declined to share its conclusion.
While authorities in the United States have yet to say whether they are
investigating the payments, many of which came from Russia and other
former Soviet states, Danske Bank's case is already high on the agenda
of European Union members.
European Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said on Thursday she will
discuss the Danske Bank case with the finance ministers of Denmark,
Finland and Estonia on October 2.
"I want to understand better where the main errors happened, whether it
was purely the fault of the lack of due diligence done by the bank
itself or whether there was also some mistakes at the level of
supervisory authorities," she said.
Jourova told a news conference in Brussels that she will also discuss
the case with the European Banking Authority to see if supervisory
mistakes were made.
And in a sign of investor concern, Brussels-based consultancy firm
Deminor Recovery Service said it would seek shareholder backing for an
impartial investigation of the case at Danske Bank's annual general
meeting in March.
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Danske Bank sign is seen at the bank's Estonian branch in Tallinn,
Estonia August 3, 2018. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

"STRIKING FAILURE"
Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen voiced his concern over the
failings exposed by the country's biggest lender, saying he was
"shocked" at the scope of the suspicious payments and pushed the bank
for more answers.
"The fact that Denmark has been at the center of money laundering of
this size is frankly quite horrible," Rasmussen said outside a meeting
of European Union leaders in Salzburg.
Danske Bank already faces a criminal investigation after the Danish
state prosecutor for financial crime said in August it had started its
own inquiry.
"The case doesn't end with this," the PM said in reference to
Wednesday's report from Danske Bank.
Danish politicians, who are scrambling to show they take the problem
seriously, agreed on a new anti-money laundering law this week that will
include an eight-fold increase in the size of fines, making it one of
the toughest in Europe.
"It's a striking management failure," Jeppe Kofod, who chairs the
European Parliament's special committee on financial crimes, tax evasion
and tax avoidance, told Reuters.
"The responsible people should be fired to show that such a failure has
consequences," he said.
Danske Bank said it had taken action against former and current staff,
but in Denmark, which regularly features in surveys as one of the
world's least corrupt countries, politicians were critical of it for not
revealing how much money may have been laundered or who held legal
responsibility.
Business minister Rasmus Jarlov said that Denmark wanted to avoid a
scenario like the one in Latvia where ABLV was accused by U.S.
authorities of covering up money laundering, leading to the bank being
denied U.S. dollar funding and collapsing.

"We're dealing with it here, and we crack down hard on money laundering,
and we hope this is being noticed abroad," he said.
(Reporting by Teis Jensen; additional reporting by Emil Gjerding Nielson
in Copenhagen and Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Emelia
Sithole-Matarise/Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen/Alexander Smith)
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