COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Norway’s financial supervision authority (FSA) said on Wednesday it had fined Danske Bank 50 million Norwegian crowns ($4.42 million) for market manipulation.
The financial watchdog, also known as Finanstilsynet, said in a statement it had imposed the penalty on the bank in connection with the issuance of a government bond in February 2023.
“Finanstilsynet believes that the swap rate was driven up by Danske Bank to an abnormal or artificial level at the time of pricing,” the agency said, adding that it found the bank had profited from a high effective yield.
Danske Bank said in a separate statement that it had informed the Danish FSA that the bank had observed conditions internally that led to suspicion of possible market manipulation, and that the case was later transferred to Norway.
“Danske Bank acknowledges that the bank’s handling of its role in the bond issue did not sufficiently balance its interests in relation to the bond issuer,” the bank said.
“We strongly condemn the behaviour described by the Norwegian supervisory authority and regret to the parties involved that this incident took place at all,” it added.
Danske Bank has made changes to its organisation as a result of the incident, it said without elaborating.
($1 = 11.3116 Norwegian crowns)
(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Terje Solsvik)
