The German banks keeps adding interesting study cases to the Financial Crime educational community.
In this occasion related to the sale of one of the banks assets to a person reported to maintain close ties with the son of a former Kremlin official.
The Russian ties of the property purchaser were noted during the pre-deal due diligence and compliance opposed to the operation indicating that regardless the legality, the repetitional damage was significant.
Management decided to continue and conclude the operation.
This actions was followed by the bank reporting the transaction to the US authorities.
It is to note that the bank is under current investigation for having conducted several Russian linked operation and failing to report them 5as the case of the Trump linked deal).
The purchaser, a limited liability company named Willow Project was believed to be owned by Vitaly Yusufov son of a former cabinet member of the Putin regime.
New York based committees objected the transaction, to after receive the order from Europe to proceed with the transaction.
The bank reportedly noted that the funds will benefit investors not the bank itself and therefore the transaction was necessary to fulfil the performance of the fund owning the property.