Swiss fine Coutts unit over 1MDB money-laundering breaches

(Feb 3): Switzerland’s financial regulator fined Coutts & Co. for violating money-laundering rules and illegally profiting from transactions associated with 1Malaysia Development Bhd, prompting Swiss prosecutors to review the decision to see if the bank should face a criminal investigation.

Coutts, owned by Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, allowed a total of US$2.4 billion ($3.4 billion) worth of assets related to the Malaysian development fund to flow through accounts in Switzerland even though it had good reason to be suspicious of the transactions, Finma said.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, known as Finma, ordered the bank to pay back 6.5 million Swiss francs ($9.28million) in unlawfully generated profits from the transactions, saying Coutts had “seriously breached money-laundering regulations by failing to carry out adequate background checks into business relationships and transactions” associated with 1MDB.

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