A felony company hired by way of Swedbank AB to guard it amid developing allegations of money laundering has accused the prosecutor investigating the case of ignoring the norms of Swedish law. Catch Up on All the Twists, and Turns of Swedbank’s Laundering Scandal Swedbank said on Sunday it’s miles the usage of Nordia as it’s outside legal recommend to deal with a crook investigation that makes a specialty of ability fraud. The probe is related to a bigger set of claims alleging that the Stockholm-primarily based lender was used to launder vast sums of cash from the previous Soviet Union.
Last week, Swedbank fired Chief Executive Officer Birgitte Bonnesen as allegations against Sweden’s oldest financial institution and biggest loan lender piled up. Swedbank is being investigated employing the economic supervisory government of Sweden and Estonia. By way of authorities inside the U.S., amid claims, it became a part of the $230 billion Danske Bank A/S Estonian scandal. Swedbank’s share fee has plunged through more or less a 3rd since the case first erupted on Feb. 20.
Swedbank posted a declaration by way of Nordia on Sunday, in which it challenged the prosecutor’s evaluation in Swedish media that the lender had hindered the research. Newspaper Dagens Industri had stated leader prosecutor Thomas Langport as pronouncing that the financial institution had obstructed a police raid with the aid of refusing to hand over a key document.
Swedbank Board Obstructed Police Raid, Dagens Industri Says In its announcement, Nordia said that allegations via the prosecutor that Swedbank “has not cooperated at some stage in the quest inside the preferred way, but to the contrary has hampered the hunt by using now not waiving the lawyer-customer privilege and the confidentiality” is “completely incorrect and incomprehensible.”
According to Nordia, “it became mentioned that information included by lawyer-consumer privilege cannot be seized.” The law company said that the prosecutor’s subsequent decision to seize the documents is “indirect warfare with Swedish regulation.” On Nordia’s advice, Swedbank has placed the documents in the query in a sealed envelope that’s been marked to make clean that the cloth is a problem to attorney purchaser privilege, the law company stated.
The cash laundering case surrounding Swedbank reached a fever pitch ultimate week, making the CEO’s persisted presence untenable. Amid media allegations that control had misled U.S. Government, Swedbank’s headquarters have been raided on Wednesday by using Sweden’s Economic Crime Authority as part of research into a capability breach of insider records rules. On an identical day, after markets closed, the general public found out that the Economic Crime Authority also became investigating Swedbank for fraud, following what seemed to be misleading statements by the CEO.
Some of Swedbank’s biggest buyers have considering signaled that they’re now not happy with the board’s managing of the case, suggesting that the CEO’s head may not be remaining to roll. In the case of Danske, the chairman changed into ejected by way of the bank’s biggest shareholder more or less a month after CEO Thomas Borgen become eliminated. Since then, Danske’s share price has stabilized.
The Swedbank money-laundering scandal has been complicated with the aid of the financial institution’s apparent attempts to lie to the public about the seriousness of the case. A file published with the aid of broadcaster SVT last week alleged that Swedbank might also have been used to launder over $one hundred billion between 2010 and 2016. That observed allegations that folks benefited from the financial institution’s services protected deposed Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych and previous Trump campaign chairman and convicted felon Paul Manafort.
In interviews with neighborhood media, given that her dismissal, Bonnesen has indicated she has no regrets. Speaking to the finance section of Jyllands-Posten, the previous Swedbank CEO stated she hopes her exit will help the bank “attention on managing the state of affairs.”
