April 19, 2016
Nordea Bank AB is struggling to shake off allegations it helped clients hide their wealth as expressions of political indignation mount.
The biggest bank in Scandinavia, where record tax burdens go toward financing the region’s famed welfare system, now faces lost business in the public sector as lawmakers criticize its ethical code in light of leaks showing Nordea may have helped clients evade taxes.
In an opinion piece titled “Nordea lacks a moral compass,” Denmark’s minister for culture and ecclesiastical affairs, Bertel Haarder, said “ethical conduct will be an important competitive parameter in the future. It won’t be enough that a transaction is legal. It also needs to be morally defensible.”
Nordea has consistently said it has no evidence it has done anything illegal. But the deluge of criticism from media, shareholders and politicians is forcing the bank to respond to allegations of unethical conduct. Casper von Koskull, Nordea’s chief executive officer, has vowed to make compliance a top priority for the bank.
The debate has shifted from a defense of the strict legality of actions described in the so-called Panama Papers to questions on the extent to which businesses uphold the spirit of the law. Scandinavians, who are used to living in a region associated with high levels of transparency and low levels of corruption, have been shocked to establish that their biggest bank featured so prominently in the Panama leaks.