Between 2007 and 2014, Danske Bank’s Estonian branch was suspected of processing as much as $235 billion in potentially laundered funds, according to reporting published in 2018. Howard Wilkinson, a British employee at the branch, identified suspected failures in the bank’s anti-money-laundering controls and sent four reports to Danske’s internal audit unit and Copenhagen management during 2013 and 2014. The allegations were not acted on publicly until years later, raising questions about oversight by the bank’s senior management and control functions.
Wilkinson’s identity was disclosed without his consent by an anonymous source to Estonia’s Eesti Ekspress in 2018, which he said violated his whistleblower-protection rights. He testified before the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance in November 2018 and before the Danish Parliament in December 2018. His disclosures became part of the continuing political and regulatory examination of Danske’s compliance failures; the case was also featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes in May 2019.
