Breaking News

Danske Bank on Wednesday agreed to pay the French government €6.3 million in penalties to settle money laundering charges linked to a notorious financial crime scandal involving the Danish lender’s now-shuttered Estonian branch.

French authorities began investigating Danske Bank in February 2019 amid suspicions that the lender’s weak anti-money laundering controls had allowed a French Russian businesswoman known only as “Mrs X” to evade millions of euros in tax and customs duties through offshore entities with accounts at the Estonian affiliate from 2007 to 2014.

“The Estonian branch of Danske Bank had practices and procedures that allowed the NRP [non-resident portfolio] customers to open accounts and record transactions without reasonable controls or due diligence,” French prosecutors concluded.

Danske Bank’s deferred prosecution agreement with France’s National Financial Prosecutor is the latest—and potentially the last—in a series of enforcement actions targeting the lender over the Estonian affair.

In December 2022, Danske Bank pleaded guilty to U.S. charges of conspiring to defraud banks and agreed to pay more than $2 billion in penalties, forfeitures and disgorgements, and committed to implementing AML upgrades pursuant to a resolution with federal prosecutors, securities regulators and Denmark’s Special Crimes Unit.