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The Danish government forwarded the four major accountants, EY, to the national anti-fraud squad to determine whether the company had broken the money-laundering rules when Danske was audited. Bank in 2014.
The Danish Business Authority, a government agency, said it conducted its own survey of Danske's audit conducted by EY in 2014 and found that the firm had discovered information about potential money laundering problems. at the bank.
The company should have carried out additional investigations and reported the case to the authorities of the time, according to the commercial authority. On Friday, he had asked the Danish prosecutor to open a police investigation into the fact that EY would have broken laws against money laundering and terrorist financing.
Danske's money-laundering scandal started in 2007 and lasted until 2015, with 200 billion euros of non-resident money – mostly dubious and coming from Russia – through its Estonian branch. during this period.
The referral to Danish fraud investigators is another blow to EY and the entire audit industry, which has been the subject of intense criticism over the last 18 months following a series of high-profile scandals involving the big four firms.
EY was one of the audit firms that audited Danske's financial statements during the period in which money laundering activities took place at the bank.
The Danish Business Authority opened an investigation into EY, as well as Deloitte, KPMG, PwC and Grant Thornton, in October to determine whether they had fulfilled their anti-money laundering obligations as part of their work for Danske until 2015.
In a statement, EY stated: "The Danish Enterprise Authority has informed us that it will entrust Danske Bank's investigation into EY Denmark's compliance with its disclosure obligations under anti-money laundering legislation to the public prosecutor, who will continue the investigation.
"EY Denmark has been collaborating fully with the Danish Business Authority since October 2018 and has made available all documents related to our audit. EY Denmark has reported as required by the regulations in force and we will co-operate fully with the public prosecutor. "
The Danish Business Authority did not explain why it was focusing on 2014, right after the peak of the 2013 scandal, where about 35 billion euros had pbaded through the Estonian branch. The government agency said that she was still investigating the audit conducted in 2013.
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Danske is already under criminal investigation in Denmark, where state prosecutors are badessing whether to charge senior officials of the country's largest bank. Danske, whose shares have fallen by half because of the scandal, is also the subject of criminal investigations in the United States and Estonia.
The money laundering scandal has trapped other Nordic banks and casts doubt on their business model of sneaking into the Baltic countries at the turn of the century.
Swedbank, whose shares have fallen by about a third since the first money laundering charges were filed in February, initially hired EY to deal with its own dirty money issues.
However, after Swedish journalists exposed the Danish EY investigation, Swedbank quickly abandoned the firm and hired another consulting firm to badess his exposure to the scandal.
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