Reported by: Geoff Schweller
On February 16, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the establishmentof a $178.6 million Fair Fund to be distributed to investors harmed in Danske Bank’s historic money laundering scheme. The scheme was originally exposed by a whistleblower: former Danske banker Howard Wilkinson.
The establishment of the massive Fair Fund underscores the tremendous impact the SEC Whistleblower Program has in protecting harmed investors. While no whistleblower award has been paid in connection with the case, it is public knowledge that the scheme was uncovered by Wilkinson’s whistleblowing.
On December 13, Danske Bank pled guilty and agreed to pay over $2 billion to settle money laundering charges by the SEC and Department of Justice (DOJ). The authorities alleged that “from at least 2009 to 2016, Danske Bank, through its Estonian branch, provided banking services to suspicious customers despite knowing there was a high degree of risk that such customers were potentially engaged in money laundering,” according to the SEC.
The Fair Fund established by the SEC is financed by the $178.6 million civil penalty paid by Danske Bank as part of the settlement. The Fund will be used to reimburse harmed investors and is held in a Commission-designated account at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In 2013, Wilkinson noticed suspicious activity in Danske Bank’s records while working as the head of the bank’s Baltic trading unit. When he investigated further, he found a $234 billion laundering scheme. The money allegedly came from Russia and other post-Soviet countries to Estonia and then flowed to high-profile European and American banks.
Wilkinson repeatedly reported his concerns internally before resigning in 2014 because his reports were being ignored. However, in 2018, news broke of Danske Bank’s $234 billion money laundering scheme. An independent audit of Danske Bank confirmed that Wilkinson had first made the bank aware of its AML control failures.
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