Danske Bank has certainly done a great number of things wrong. Laundering money, mostly, and lots of it, for lots of people on a list of people for whom it should most especially not been laundering money. It was also, predictably and necessarily, given the above, pretty bad at detecting money laundering or listening to those who did. And, of course, it did business with Deutsche Bank, a serious enough lapse in judgement in and of itself, even before you realize that most of that business was—you guessed it—laundering money. But one thing it does not seem to have done wrong is violate U.S. sanctions while doing all of that money laundering.
Denmark’s biggest bank has been told by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) that an investigation into it is being closed, according to a statement on Saturday…. The origin of the dirty money that flowed through Danske led to speculation it may have breached U.S. sanctions, which would have increased the likelihood of a substantial fine.
Which is not to say, given that OFAC was just one of roughly a million authorities around the world looking into things, that a very substantial pile of fines, indeed, is not still in the offing.
“As the bank said in its statement, probes by DOJ and SEC continue, which we think are likely related to possible money laundering and maybe disclosure violations. The risk of penalties in that regard still exists….”/[Danske Chief Compliance Officer Philippe] Vollot also said the bank remains “unable to estimate any potential outcome” of its dialogues with the authorities investigating it.
U.S. Clears Danske of Sanctions Breach, But Case Isn’t Over [Bloomberg]