Nordea has been fined 155 million Danish kroner by the Copenhagen District Court for violating anti-money laundering legislation, although the bank was acquitted of most charges in a case where prosecutors had sought a record 6.6 billion kroner fine.
The ruling, announced Monday, concerns violations dating from 2012 to 2015 and concludes one of Denmark’s largest money laundering cases, which involved 60 court hearings since May 2025.
According to the court, Nordea was acquitted on five of the seven counts against it, including the most financially significant allegations involving suspicious transactions worth more than 24 billion kroner.
However, the court found that the bank had acted with gross negligence in its dealings with companies engaged in currency exchange and money transfers.
One of the charges concerned six companies operating money transfer and currency exchange businesses that had purchased 200- and 500-euro banknotes worth a combined 85 million euros from Nordea.
The court concluded that the bank had failed to exercise the heightened scrutiny required for transactions involving such customers and had neglected its obligations to investigate potentially suspicious activity.
Nordea was found guilty of gross negligence regarding five of the six companies. It was acquitted in relation to the sixth because that company was not a Nordea customer.
The bank was also found partially guilty of failing to monitor electronic transactions adequately.
According to the judgment, more than 200,000 transaction alerts had been archived, preventing suspicious transactions from being reported promptly to Denmark’s Anti-Money Laundering Secretariat, the authority responsible for receiving and analyzing reports of suspected money laundering.
However, the court found that prosecutors had not demonstrated that Nordea’s monitoring system had been programmed with insufficient alert scenarios.
In the largest charge by monetary value, prosecutors accused Nordea of failing to investigate transactions involving 25 customers between 2012 and 2015 and failing to report suspicious activity totaling more than 24 billion kroner.
The court acquitted the bank, finding that prosecutors had not sufficiently demonstrated violations of the anti-money laundering legislation applicable at the time.
Other parts of the indictment were dismissed because the descriptions of Nordea’s alleged criminal conduct were insufficiently specific.
In determining the 155 million kroner fine, the judges considered the nature, severity and scale of the violations, as well as the potential savings Nordea had obtained by failing to conduct the required checks.
The court also took account of the unusually long proceedings.
“In addition, the sentencing took into account that the processing time, particularly by the police and the prosecution, had been long, and that there had been no further explanation for periods in which the investigation of the case had been without progress,” the court stated.
The decision was reached unanimously by two professional judges and three lay judges.
Nordea had previously set aside 700 million kroner to cover a potential fine and said it was satisfied with the outcome.
“I note with great satisfaction that Nordea was acquitted on five out of seven counts. These are the most significant counts where we have been acquitted,” Anders Holkmann Olsen, Nordea’s general counsel, said in a press release.
“We take a fine very seriously, but I also note that the size of the fine is very far from the claim we were faced with by the prosecution.”
The case originated in 2016, when the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finanstilsynet) reported Nordea to the police following a supervisory inspection.
Denmark’s National Special Crime Unit (NSK), which investigates serious and complex financial crimes, formally charged the bank in July 2024.
The trial began in May 2025 and was heard over 60 sessions at the Copenhagen District Court, with five prosecutors working on the case.
The judgment marks a significant reduction from the 6.6 billion kroner fine sought by prosecutors, although the court confirmed that Nordea had failed to comply with important anti-money laundering obligations.