The so-called ”Grimstadrapporten”, is a report written by the Norwegian lawyer Erling Grimstad on behalf of Swedbank.
the Report is said to contain information about the major shortcomings in Swedbank’s penningtvättsarbete and has been central in the skein around the bank in recent weeks.
seized in the raid on the Swedbank’s head office but have been prevented from accessing it. The bank claims advokatsekretess and think it would be a misconduct of prosecutor Thomas Langrot to open it.
But when the SVT requested the report disclosed from the financial supervisory authority (FI), examined the confidentiality and the report came out – heavily masked. Also DN has received the report.
not to advokatsekretess without to commercial confidentiality when it is used to mask large parts of the report which is important. It undermines the argument from the bank and its lawyers when referring specifically to the advokatsekretess want to prevent the prosecutor from reading the report.
It can also be crucial for the Ekobrottsmyndighetens investigation. Affärssekretessen case namely not among the authorities whether you can expect to the suspected crime generates more than fines in the tariffs, explaining the FI’s chief legal counsel Per Håkansson.
In this case, the investigating prosecutor, the unauthorized disclosure of inside information and serious scam. The latter has a minimum penalty of six months imprisonment.
“Yes, it can be expected,” says Per Håkansson.
so far the prosecutor has not taken any contact with him.
“I can’t answer for the others on FI but he has the full opportunity to do it,” says Per Håkansson.
who are called upon to represent the interests of Swedbank in the investigation, admits that the bank has a particular interest in protecting the report from the prosecutor.
Foremost is the decision to prevent the prosecutor from taking the part of the report to ensure that the bank is not getting sued in other countries to have lifted the advokatsekretessen.
– In some countries, there is a very quick to make use of such to institute proceedings and sue in large amounts, ” says Hans Strandberg, and continues:
– the Bank doesn’t really have a desire to withhold from the public prosecutor the information that they should not be able to test if there has been something wrong. It is to protect the bank from attacks from outside, as you can’t predict.
” Yes, it is clear it is about protecting the report in and of itself. But you can not remit the advokatsekretessen but to be clear about all the implications, it is my huvudpåstående, ” says Hans Strandberg to DN.
Despite the fact that the report is heavily masked in the disclosed version still be possible to deduce some things.
it is submitted to Swedbank on 10 december 2018, well three weeks earlier than what the sources of Today’s Industry said, when the newspaper revealed that the report existed.
It has in other words been available for the chairman of the board, Lars Idermark, in about 16 weeks when he after the annual general meeting on Thursday denied that he read it.
Grimstad stresses that his conclusions are preliminary (the”preliminary findings”) and that he has not taken part of certain documents and certain information.
There are also formulations which can be interpreted as that there really has been deficiencies in the internal control of the clients of Swedbank’s Estonian operations.
whether the bank or any person suspected of crimes in the present time, neither the current grossly fraudulent activity, or if the disclosure of inside information.
the bank’s head of communications, Gabriel Francke Rodau says in a text message to the DN that the bank has consulted the ”external legal experts” when it considered that the report fell within the scope of advokatsekretess.
– FI has made a different assessment, and we respect that they have a different opinion, ” he adds.
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