Banks, Financial Services, Latvia
International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics
Saturday, 27.04.2024, 07:07
EY Poland office to head auditor firm's work on ABLV Bank's liquidation
ABLV Bank’s liquidators have hired EY as an independent
adviser tasked with developing an anti-money laundering compliance methodology
for the payout of money to the bank’s creditors. The EY team will also help
with the implementation and supervision of the methodology to prevent possible
cases of money laundering or sanctions violations in the payout process.
The EY team
will include experts from the EU and Europe with practical experience in
preventing financial crimes in global financial institutions, specifically in
areas like Know Your Customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML), international
sanctions (IS) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).
EY has been
involved in developing the methodology for compliance processes at ABLV Bank since May 2018 and has been
working closely with the Financial and Capital Market Commission (FCMC) and ABLV Bank’s liquidators on the project.
As
reported, the Latvian financial regulator, the Finance and Capital Market
Commission, acting on the instructions from the European Central Bank (ECB),
ordered ABLV Bank to stop all payments
as of February 19, 2018, following a report by the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of Treasury about ABLV Bank's involvement in international money laundering schemes
and corruption.
On February
26 the shareholders of ABLV Bank made
a decision to start the voluntary liquidation process for maximum protection of
the interests of its clients and creditors.
On May 3 ABLV Bank and its largest shareholders
filed a complaint with the EU Court of Justice against the European Central
Bank (ECB) and the Single Resolution Board (SRB) about several possible
violations, including abuse of power, failure to observe proportionality and
equal treatment, etc. The complaint lists a range of serious objections to the
manner of how the decision about the bank being failing or likely to fail was
taken.