WILL $475m CIVIL SUIT AGAINST MONEY LAUNDERING BANK BY INVESTORS SCARE THE INDUSTRY ?

According to attorneys who are representing investors in Danske Bank, who are from nineteen countries, including among them large institutional clients, and pension funds, their clients lost billions of dollars in value when the stock tanked after an investigation confirmed that Russians had laundered more than $200bn through the bank's Estonian branch. The suit seeks $475m in damages, against the largest financial institution in Denmark.

One report alleges that total investor losses could reach $9bn.  Onvioiusly, the anti-money laundering compliance program administered both at the bank's branch in Estonia, and at its Danish headquarters, utterly failed.

The question is whether this massive lawsuit will sufficiently frighten the world's largest banks into creating, and maintaining, an effective AML/CFT program. Most banks appears to consider regulatory fines & penalties merely the cost of doing business, and many continue, time after time, to incur penalties, without implementing serious compliance countermeasures to interdict money laundering and terrorist financing, on a real-time basis. Will the banking industry now be sufficiently alarmed, by the Danske Bank lawsuit, to fear similar actions against them, and act accordingly ?

Readers who wish more information on the litigation against Danske Bank will find it below.