By Richard Vanderford
Danske Bank has agreed to pay the equivalent of $7 million in a settlement with French authorities over its failure to stop money-laundering at its former branch in Estonia.
The settlement: Danske Bank, the largest in Denmark, said Wednesday it had cooperated with French authorities and agreed to pay 6.33 million euros in a settlement with France's national financial prosecutor, ending that country's investigation into the bank.
The inquiry was the last outstanding one by any authority stemming from the Danske Estonia branch's handling of nonresident accounts, bank Senior General Counsel Niels Heering said.
Background: In 2018, Danske disclosed that more than $230 billion had flowed from Russia and other former Soviet states through its Estonia branch. The bank said many of the transactions were likely illicit, an admission that led to years of scrutiny of the bank's compliance program and its corporate governance.
In 2022, Danske agreed to pay $2 billion in a settlement with U.S. and Danish authorities over the issues at the Estonia branch, admitting to anti-money-laundering-related violations.
France, however, didn't participate in that settlement. French authorities said they opened their own judicial investigation in 2015, and found that Danske knew that providing banking services in Estonia for nonresidents was a high-risk business, but had a "passive and complacent attitude" toward its financial-crime controls.
Write to Richard Vanderford at Richard.Vanderford@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 18, 2024 17:53 ET (21:53 GMT)
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