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Sweden's Supreme Court clears former Swedbank CEO of 'swindling'

AFP
AFP - news@thelocal.se
Sweden's Supreme Court clears former Swedbank CEO of 'swindling'
Birgitte Bonnesen, former CEO of Swedbank. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

Sweden's top court has fully acquitted Birgitte Bonnesen, the former chief executive of Swedbank, overturning her previous conviction of "swindling" investors.

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Bonnesen, who headed Swedbank from 2016 to 2019, had been convicted with "gross swindling" over statements made to media about the bank's links to a money laundering scandal.

In 2023, a district court cleared her of the charges, but an appeals court in 2024 handed her a 15-month prison sentence.

In 2019, Swedish public service broadcaster SVT alleged that at least 40 billion kronor (equivalent at the time to $4.4 billion) of suspicious and high-risk transactions had been channelled to Baltic countries, notably Estonia, from Swedbank accounts.

The revelations, which saw the bank's share price tumble, led to Bonnesen being fired.

Prosecutors later charged Bonnesen, accusing her of providing false or misleading information about the steps the bank had taken to prevent and detect suspected money laundering, when interviewed by Swedish media.

The Supreme Court said the case highlighted the application of free speech laws in Sweden.

The court said, "the statements made by the bank director in the interviews were responses to questions of an investigative journalistic nature, in what must be regarded as ordinary interview situations".

"Nothing has emerged to indicate that her purpose was to use the interviews as a means of spreading misleading information that would influence the assessment of the bank from an economic perspective," the court said in a statement.

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It added that the interviews were considered part of "journalistic activity" and therefore fell under the scope of what Sweden's constitutional freedom of expression laws were intended to protect.

Her answers were therefore also protected under her right to communicate, the court found.

"She has consequently been fully acquitted," the court said.

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