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Nordea Spared Laundering Probe as Finland Drops Browder Case

Nordea Escapes Laundering Probe as Finland Drops Browder Case

(Bloomberg) -- Finland won’t start a formal investigation into Nordea Bank Abp after Hermitage Capital co-founder Bill Browder filed a criminal complaint accusing the Nordic region’s biggest financial firm of money laundering.

Finnish police have been reviewing the case since October, after Browder alleged that Nordea let $234 million in suspicious funds flow through its Finnish branch. But a preliminary inquiry by the National Bureau of Investigation in Helsinki found that the “allegedly suspicious acts” were committed in Estonia and Lithuania, where Finnish authorities have no jurisdiction, according to a statement on Tuesday. The bureau also said the transfers largely took place more than 10 years ago, putting them under the statutes of limitations.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Browder said he will appeal the decision. But police have said that appeals aren’t possible in this case. Instead, Browder can either bring a new charge against Nordea or complain to higher authorities.

“They claim the money never touched Finland and was beyond the 10 year statute of limitations. Both are untrue,” Browder wrote on Twitter. “If money laundering across the European Union is to be stopped, it requires serious and rigorous activity of law enforcement.”

Browder made similar filings to other Nordic prosecutors last year, and Swedish authorities have already decided against starting a probe, in part as the amounts alleged to have moved through Nordea’s branch there were relatively small. A Browder complaint against Danske Bank A/S was followed by multiple criminal investigations.

“Nordea doesn’t accept being used to launder money or as conduit to other financial crime,” Sakari Wuolijoki, head of legal matters in Finland, said in a statement on the bank’s website on Tuesday. “We don’t accept it now and we have not accepted it before. We have always reported suspicious activity to relevant authorities.”

Finnish police said there’s no reason to suspect that Nordea would have been aware of any suspicious operations in the Baltic countries.

“The request for investigation or attached documents do not reveal the facts supporting the claim that when receiving the payments, those acting on behalf of the Finnish seller companies and Nordea did know that the funds in question were gained from aggravated tax fraud or some other offences in Russia,” the police wrote in the document seen by Bloomberg and addressed to Browder’s Hermitage Capital Management. “There is no reason to suspect an offence.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kati Pohjanpalo in Helsinki at kpohjanpalo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net

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