Franklin, Andrews, Kramer & Edelstein

[scion]

The FinCEN Files provide a stark reminder that protecting European companies and protecting European interests are not always the same thing. Governments should look again at the relationship between megabanks and democratic politics.

https://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_finance_democracy_and_sovereignty_how_europe_should_respond_to_t

The FinCEN Files, published on 20 September, show how illicit finance disrupts the European Union’s plans to become a “sovereign” power. The files comprise more than 2,500 documents leaked from the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), covering around $2 trillion in transactions processed by multinational banks between 2000 and 2017. Although most of these documents are suspicious activity reports – which are far from being evidence of a crime, let alone an accurate measure of the sector as a whole – many of them provide new information on publicly known cases of money laundering, sanctions busting, and terrorist financing. European firms are central to the FinCEN Files: Deutsche Bank was allegedly involved in more than half of the transactions in the documents, while their publication contributed to a fall in the share price of HSBC – Europe’s largest bank – to its lowest point in 25 years.