Reported by: OLA WESTERBERG

A Swedish court cleared on Wednesday Swedbank’s former CEO Birgitte Bonnesen of playing down the bank’s inadequate prevention of massive money-laundering through its operations in the Baltic states.

Chief Judge Malou Lindblom speaks with reporters following the verdict delivery. (Photo: Ola Westerberg, OCCRP)

In the highly unusual case, Bonnesen was charged with aggravated fraud for knowing about the problem but publicly denying it in statements in late 2018 and early 2019.

When investigative reporters at Swedish Television later revealed that large-scale money-laundering had indeed taken place, the Swedish bank’s share plunged on the stock market.

The prosecutors had urged a two-year prison penalty for Bonnesen but the Stockholm District Court dismissed the charges after a lengthy trial.

While some of Bonnesen’s statements were “unclear and incomplete regarding the bank’s anti-money-laundering work,” she spoke in “general terms” and was “to a large extent correct,” the court concluded. “In any case, the CEO did not claim that Swedbank did not have any problems at all.”

”To be sentenced for fraud, it is not enough to make inaccurate claims or omit important information, it has to be misleading” and have a “certain concretion and precision,” Chief Judge Malou Lindblom told reporters after the verdict was pronounced.

Read full report: https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/17272-swedbank-ex-ceo-cleared-of-money-laundering-cover-up