April 4, 2016
Austrian regulators are investigating whether two banks named in an international data leak followed procedures to prevent money laundering, one of the firms having attracted attention for its lending to a confectionery company owned by Ukraine’s president.
The leaked “Panama Papers” cover a period over almost 40 years, from 1977 until last December, and allegedly show that some companies domiciled in tax havens were being used for suspected money laundering, arms and drug deals and tax evasion.
Two Austrian media groups that were among the more than 100 news organisations that jointly investigated the documents’ contents identified Raiffeisen Bank International and Hypo Landesbank Vorarlberg as companies named in the trove.
“We are verifying whether the banks did their work thoroughly beforehand,” a spokesman for Austrian financial markets regulator FMA said, citing required checks on matters such as the purpose of transactions and people involved.
“We are verifying that in the course of an on-site inspection,” he said, adding that the FMA can refer matters to the criminal authorities if it suspects wrongdoing.