Published 4 January 2022 at 17.02
Domestic. Swedbank's former CEO Birgitte Bonnesen is today charged with first and foremost gross fraud, secondly gross market manipulation. According to the indictment, she has tried to cover up the bank's problems with preventing money laundering.
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Birgitte Bonnesen was CEO of Swedbank between 2016 and 2019.
The crime consists of the former CEO of the bank intentionally or through gross negligence, among the public or the company's stakeholders, disseminated misleading information about the bank's measures to prevent, detect, prevent and report suspicions of money laundering in Swedbank's operations in Estonia, says Chief Prosecutor and preliminary investigation leader Thomas Langrot at the Economic Crimes Authority in Stockholm.
According to the prosecutor, this took place partly on 23–24 October 2018, partly on 29 January 2019, and on 20 February 2019. of the company financially and thereby cause damage.
– I have chosen to primarily prosecute for gross fraud, but there is a secondary claim regarding gross market manipulation. The most important effect is the large fall in the price of the Swedbank share after the revelations, says Thomas Langrot. the bank's operations in Estonia during the years 2007–2018.
– I claim that this has happened despite the fact that the former CEO had knowledge of unpublished information about extensive and serious shortcomings regarding the AML processes and also information about extensive suspicious transactions/customers from a money laundering perspective in the Estonian business, says Thomas Langrot .
– The preliminary investigation also shows that there was a clear strategy from, among others, the CEO that the problems regarding the AML processes in the Estonian operations would not come to market. Another word for this is that there is evidence of a cover-up, he continues.
The former CEO is also charged with unauthorized disclosure of inside information.
– In his capacity as executive director and CEO of the bank, the defendant has intentionally disclosed inside information about the content of an upcoming episode of the television program Assignment Review. The suspected crime took place at a meeting on 18 February 2019 where representatives of the bank's largest shareholders participated, says Thomas Langrot.