Nordea Bank Abp was fined 155 million kroner ($23 million) by the Copenhagen City Court, a fraction of the 6.6 billion kroner prosecutors had sought. The bank had set aside €95 million ($106 million) for the penalty, and shares rose as much as 2.5% in Helsinki after the verdict.
The court found Nordea intentionally breached monitoring obligations by systematically archiving more than 200,000 alerts without investigation, delaying reports to Denmark's Money Laundering Secretariat. However, the bank was largely acquitted on five other counts involving customer due diligence and correspondent banking.
Analysts called the fine "close to an acquittal" and a "major defeat" for prosecutors. The case, covering transactions from 2012‑2015, was the first Danish money‑laundering trial against a bank; previous cases, including Danske Bank's 3.5 billion‑kroner settlement, were resolved out of court.
Source: Bloomberg Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing