(Bloomberg) -- Ralph Hamers, the former chief executive officer of Swiss lender UBS Group AG and Dutch lender ING Groep NV, can start looking past a long legal case in the Netherlands.
Dutch prosecutors said in a statement Wednesday they will ask the relevant court that Hamers “will not be prosecuted” in a case revolving around allegations of anti-money laundering shortcomings at ING. The court is likely to comply with the request, though it could theoretically choose to override it.
The prosecutors were investigating the issue and Hamers’ role in it for four years, with news about the probe emerging in late 2020, just weeks after he had taken on the CEO role at UBS. The development put a shadow over Hamers’ tenure from the very start, even though the Swiss bank expressed “full confidence” in him.
The prosecutors’ decision “is logical and correct,” a representative for Hamers said by email on Wednesday. The probe showed that “there is no evidence against Mr. Hamers and that therefore no criminal reproach can be made.”
“We are confident that the court, once it has taken note of the investigation file, will follow this conclusion,” the representative said in the email.
UBS replaced Hamers with Sergio Ermotti early last year, shortly after it agreed to buy domestic rival Credit Suisse in an emergency takeover. Ermotti, who had run UBS as CEO previously, was the “preferred” choice for the complex job of putting the two big banks together, Chairman Colm Kelleher said at the time.
A Dutch court asked prosecutors in 2020 to investigate Hamers’ role in the case. ING agreed in 2018 to settle related allegations for €775 million ($814 million).
Hamers, 58, was CEO at ING from 2013 until mid-2020.
“Although it must be concluded in retrospect that the measures taken internally by ING at the time were insufficient, the Public Prosecution Service concludes that the investigation has not yielded sufficient evidence that would justify personal criminal liability of Hamers,” the Dutch prosecutors said in the statement on Wednesday.
The prosecutor’s office will ask the Court of Appeal in The Hague “whether the prosecution can be discontinued,” it said.
Two months ago, Hamers became an external senior adviser at Arta Finance, a digital-wealth platform founded by onetime Google staffers. It was his first public appointment since leaving UBS last year.
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