Swedbank's CEO is sentenced to prison for serious fraud

Published 10 September 2024 at 14.45

Economy. At 2 pm on Friday, the Svea Court of Appeal announced its verdict in what has been called the “prosecution of the century” in business – the trial against Swedbank's former CEO Birgitte Bonnesen. The district court's acquittal was overturned by the Court of Appeal and the bank manager is now sentenced to one year and three months in prison for serious fraud.

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Scandals in Swedbank

• Swedbank's former CEO acquitted of gross fraud
• Estonia accuses Swedbank of money laundering
• Here Swedbank conceals money laundering for the USA
• Swedbank's former CEO is indicted for serious fraud
• Prosecution against Swedbank postponed again

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Despite the bank's extensive money laundering, no one within Swedbank has been prosecuted for the money laundering itself, even though business money laundering has been punishable since 2014.

Instead, Bonnessen was prosecuted for how she handled the information that Swedbank's money laundering would be revealed by SVT. The charges are gross fraud, alternatively gross market manipulation, and unauthorized disclosure of insider information.

At the center were statements that Bonnesen made in 2018 and 2019, connected to the money laundering scandal that overshadowed the big bank at the time.

The Court of Appeal considers that Birgitte Bonnesen provided misleading information in media interviews in 2018, with Svenska Dagbladet and TT. She said in the interviews that there was no suspected money laundering connection to another bank's operations in Estonia.

– The Court of Appeal has assessed several statements that have been made to the media and stock analysts. The court has then come to the conclusion that two of the statements have been incorrect or involved such a skewed selection of facts that they have been misleading in the sense of the law, says the court's chairman, Court of Appeal Councilor Sven Johannisson.

In addition to the statements, the trial was about Birgitte Bonnesen inviting particularly important shareholders to when she found out that SVT's “Uppdrag gränskning” was going to broadcast a program about the bank's lack of routines against money laundering.

Through the meeting, important shareholders got chance to get ahead of the market with the inside information that Bonnesen offered. The disclosure of such information must take place through press releases to the entire market at the same time, and disclosing it to your favorite shareholders is clearly criminal.

It is incumbent on the CEO of a listed company to know this legislation, but still Birgitte Bonnesen was also acquitted on this charge in the district court when the case was tried there in the fall of 2022. She was also acquitted in that part in the Court of Appeal.

Neither has the bank managed without consequences from Bonnesen's actions. Swedbank received a record fine of SEK 4 billion from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, and the Stockholm Stock Exchange fined the bank SEK 50 million for not handling the knowledge of Task Review's upcoming program as insider information.