Swedish multinational banking group, Swedbank, recently announced that the U.S. Department of Justice closed an investigation into the bank. According to a press release issued by the bank on January 14, 2026, an inquiry launched by the DOJ in 2019 to investigate “Swedbank’s historical anti-money laundering work” was closed without enforcement. In the same statement, Swedbank clarified that an investigation launched by the New York Department of Financial Services continues. The announcement comes just months after Swedbank announced in September 2025, that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission closed its investigation into the bank’s “historic disclosures of information.”
In 2019, multiple jurisdictions launched investigations into Swedbank’s compliance programs after a Swedish news outlet released a television broadcast accusing the bank of engaging in money laundering in Estonia. In its 2019 annual report, Swedbank revealed that the Swedish and Estonian authorities had launched investigations into the bank’s compliance with anti-money laundering (“AML”) regulations. In the same report, Swedbank also disclosed that U.S. authorities had launched investigations that would likely “take several years” to complete. Since the 2019 broadcast, Swedbank has taken steps to address its AML shortcomings and has paid millions of dollars in fines to resolve alleged AML breaches, including SEK 4 billion (approximately $386 million) to Swedish authorities in 2020 and SEK 46.6 million (approximately $5.5 million) to Nasdaq Stockholm in 2021. In 2023, Swedbank Latvia AS also reached a $3.4 million settlement with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to resolve allegations that it engaged in 386 apparent violations of U.S. sanctions.