Julius Baer to stay FIFA Corruption Case for $80 Million
Julius Baer, Switzerland's third-largest private bank, announced on Monday it has come to an agreement with the US Department of Justice to settle allegations concerning its role inside a corruption case involving FIFA.
The bank is putting aside $79.7 million for the settlement, that also includes a three-year deferred prosecution agreement. Provision for that financial portion of the settlement is going to be noted within the bank's 2021 financial results.
The case concerns a probe by the DOJ into the banking sector's links with suspected money laundering and corruption involving FIFA officials, marketing companies and sports media, the Swiss bank said. In 2021, an old Julius Baer banker was convicted in the US for facilitating bribes, including one issued towards the late president of the Argentinian football federation.
The bank has since come under pressure from regulators to enhance its anti-money laundering protections, and in February the Swiss financial watchdog FINMA blocked the financial institution from making large acquisitions, judging that it fell “significantly short in combating money laundering” between 2009 and 2021.
In its announcement, the financial institution hailed the agreement as “another part of Julius Baer management's continued efforts to pursue the closure of remaining regulatory and legal matters in cooperation with the relevant authorities,” and described measures it had taken to boost its anti-money laundering controls, including re-documenting each one of the organisation's client relationships and introducing an enhanced Code of Ethics and Business Conduct.
Julius Baer added it has cooperated with the DOJ's investigation because it began in 2021, during the tenure of former CEO Boris Collardi.
The FIFA corruption scandal has led to its former secretary general, Jerome Valcke, being issued a $100,000 fine and a 10-year suspension for reselling tickets on the black market. Valcke seemed to be found to be connected to payments totalling $10 million from the FIFA banking account to a different controlled by former FIFA vice president Jack Warner.
