Swedbank fined $50 million by New York authorities over Panama Papers revelations
Swedbank has agreed to pay a $50 million fine to New York’s state financial regulator to settle a money laundering case tied to the Panama Papers.
The Swedish group reached the settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), which first launched the investigation in 2019.
The probe was into the bank’s anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing controls, and its disclosures to regulators between 2007 and 2019, according to a statement by Swedbank.
The DFS had accused Swedbank of withholding information and misleading investigators during the probe into its ties with the Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca.
The Panama Papers, a 2016 cross-border journalistic expose led by ICIJ and Suddeutsche Zeitung, was based on a huge trove of leaked Mossack Fonseca documents. Among those documents was proof that customers of Swedbank’s Estonia subsidiary used Mossack Fonseca as a registered agent.
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