How did Swedbank live up to the demands of its shareholders and the public in a legitimate way? : A case study of the money laundering scandal at Swedbank.

Abstract: The money laundering scandal at Swedbank has in the past been investigated from different perspectives. There appeared to be a lack of studies which investigated banking scandals in the financial service sector using the stakeholder theory and the legitimacy theory. The purpose of this study was to analyze the money laundering scandal at Swedbank during the chosen time frame using the stakeholder theory and the legitimacy theory. The research question of the study was “How did Swedbank live up to the demands of its shareholders and the public in a legitimate way?”. A case study with an inductive approach was chosen to answer the research question. The empirical data consisted of the annual and sustainability reports of Swedbank, the Clifford Chance report, documentaries, news articles and information from Finansinspektionen. The results showed that Swedbank during the money laundering scandal only lived up to the demands of its primary stakeholders, such as the shareholders, but in an illegitimate way.