By Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Dutch prosecutors said they will not prosecute former executives of the two biggest banks in the Netherlands on Wednesday, saying there was not enough evidence to merit criminal charges after investigating whether they did enough to stop money laundering.
The decisions, announced in separate statements after lengthy investigations by prosecutors, mean charges will not be brought against former ING Chief Executive Ralph Hamers or ABN Amro’s former CEO Gerrit Zalm.
ING was fined 775 million euros ($813 million) in 2018 for failing to stop money laundering on customer accounts, while ABN settled a similar probe for 480 million euros in 2021.
“The public prosecutor has come to the conclusion that there is insufficient legal and convincing evidence to pursue former ING manager Hamers for criminal acts,” they said in a statement.
Hamers, who later served as the CEO of Swiss bank UBS welcomed the prosecutor’s decision as “logical and just”.
Zalm, who is also an ex-finance minister of the Netherlands, could not be immediately reached for comment. An ABN Amro spokesperson said it expects he will make a comment later.
In the ABN Amro case, Zalm had been named as a suspect along with its former CFO and CEO Kees van Dijkhuizen, politician and banker Joop Wijn and Chris Vogelzang, who stepped down as Danske Bank CEO in 2021 over the allegations.
Prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence against any of the men to hold them criminally responsible.
It noted that each of the ABN suspects had taken steps that should have reduced money laundering, but were not successful.
($1 = 0.9527 euros)
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Alexander Smith)
