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DANSKE BANK

Danske Bank sets aside nearly €2 billion for expected fines

Danske Bank, which is under investigation by Danish and US authorities, said Thursday it had set aside an additional 14 billion kroner (1.9 billion euros) to cover expected fines related to massive suspected money laundering via its Estonian branch.

Danske Bank sets aside nearly €2 billion for expected fines
Bicycles outside a Danske Bank branch in Copenhagen. File photo: Andrew Kelly/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix

“The discussions with US and Danish authorities related to the Estonia matter are now at a stage where Danske Bank can reliably estimate the total financial impact of a potential coordinated resolution amounting to a total of DKK 15.5 billion” or $2.1 billion, the bank’s chief executive Carsten Egeriis said in a statement.

“Our dialogue with the authorities is ongoing, and while there is still uncertainty that a resolution will be reached, we hope that a resolution will be concluded before the end of this year,” he added.

The bank had already set aside 1.5 billion kroner in 2018 when the scandal first emerged.

An investigation carried out by an outside law firm for the bank found that it could not account for the origin of more than $220 billion that flowed through its Estonian branch from 2007 to 2015, much of which was suspected to have come from Russia.

Danske Bank’s shares soared more than 10 percent after the announcement, the first time it has provided any estimate of the fines it may face.

Copenhagen City Court is meanwhile currently hearing a money laundering case related to the bank’s disgraced branch in Estonian capital Tallinn.

In the case, a Danish-Russian woman is accused of laundering over 29 billion kroner through the bank in cooperation with a Lithuanian national, by using shell companies in Copenhagen.

The now-closed Tallinn Danske Bank branch was at the centre of the major money laundering scandal in 2018.

READ ALSO: Danish court jails woman in 4 billion euro money laundering case

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CRIME

Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

Denmark’s government wants authorities to be able to move children out of families in which parents are gang members and is likely to formalise the measure in parliament.

Danish government backs removing children from gang-connected families

The justice spokesperson with senior coalition partner the Social Democrats, Bjørn Brandenborg, told regional media TV2 Fyn that he wants authorities to have the power to remove children from their families in certain circumstances where the parents are gang members.

Brandenborg’s comments came on Monday, after Odense Municipality said it had spent 226 million kroner since 2009 on social services for eight specific families with gang connections.

“There is simply a need for us to give the authorities full backing and power to forcibly remove children early so we break the food chain and the children don’t become part of gang circles,” he said.

The measure will be voted on in parliament “within a few weeks”, he said.

An earlier agreement on anti-gang crime measures, which was announced by the government last November, includes provisions for measures of this nature, Brandenborg later confirmed to newswire Ritzau.

“Information [confirming] that close family members of a child or young person have been convicted for gang crime must be included as a significant and element in the municipality’s assessment” of whether an intervention is justified, the agreement states according to Ritzau.

The relevant part of November’s political agreement is expected to be voted on in parliament this month.

READ ALSO: Denmark cracks down on gang crime with extensive new agreement

Last year, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told political media Altinget that family relations to a gang member could be a parameter used by authorities when assessing whether a child should be forcibly removed from parents.

In the May 2023 interview, Hummelgaard called the measure a “hard and far-reaching measure”.

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