2020 Allard Prize Recipient Video: Howard Wilkinson — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:14[Music]
2. 0:21danske bank provided
3. 0:23a hole in the wall around the western
4. 0:25financial system
5. 0:26that allowed vast quantities of illicit
6. 0:29funds to flow in without anyone knowing
7. 0:31who they belong to
8. 0:35i found that this company which had been
9. 0:37a big active customer in the bank for
10. 0:39several months
11. 0:40had filed accounts saying that during
12. 0:42that same period
13. 0:43it was dormant and yet they shoved 200
14. 0:47million dollars
15. 0:48in four months through their accounts
16. 0:52it could just have been one company one
17. 0:54bad lotta got in
18. 0:56but once i started digging it was
19. 0:58obvious it was something much more
20. 0:59systemic with the customer base
21. 1:03anyone who provides a back door through
22. 1:05this is able to make a lot of money out
23. 1:07of it
24. 1:07that was the business model of danske
25. 1:10banks estonian branch
26. 1:19i looked at the three largest uk llps
27. 1:22the three most profitable ones in
28. 1:24estonia and i pulled the accounts
29. 1:26and it was quite interesting they were
30. 1:29all fake
31. 1:30not just that they all basically looked
32. 1:32the same and it turned out that they all
33. 1:34had the same registered office in the uk
34. 1:36firstly it looked like this particular
35. 1:39group of companies have been into some
36. 1:40very bad stuff
37. 1:42but worse than that it looked like
38. 1:43there'd been some collusion as well i
39. 1:45made my
40. 1:46whistle-blowing report directly to
41. 1:48copenhagen
42. 1:49and the reason being was that the issue
43. 1:51seemed to be so serious
44. 1:53that it wasn't appropriate to raise them
45. 1:55within the
46. 1:56branch not appropriate
47. 1:59the internal auditors confirmed what i
48. 2:01found
49. 2:02but then they just did nothing the fact
50. 2:05that the bank then essentially refused
51. 2:08to take the action that they should have
52. 2:09been taking only
53. 2:11added to the seriousness of what he was
54. 2:13exposing
55. 2:14there's a lot of people who valued their
56. 2:17career
57. 2:18more than doing the right thing
58. 2:21you know i don't want to be involved or
59. 2:23anywhere near this so
60. 2:24i resigned i also warned them that
61. 2:29i'd taken legal advice and that if they
62. 2:31weren't going to go and inform the
63. 2:32authorities then i was quite prepared to
64. 2:34do it myself
65. 2:35when i resigned the bank had a right to
66. 2:38enforce a non-compete clause to stop me
67. 2:40going and working for a competitor and
68. 2:42paying for it
69. 2:43guy flew over from copenhagen met in a
70. 2:46hotel
71. 2:46presented me with this agreement the
72. 2:48problem with this agreement was that
73. 2:49there was a also essentially a
74. 2:51very tough gag clause non-disclosure
75. 2:54agreement within this
76. 2:56i wasn't happy with that basically
77. 2:58because of the lack of action
78. 3:00from management over the previous months
79. 3:05the non-disclosure agreement they're
80. 3:07used all the time
81. 3:10to silence whistleblowers
82. 3:13this senior executive looked me in the
83. 3:15eye and he gave me
84. 3:17his personal assurance that he had zero
85. 3:20tolerance for money laundering
86. 3:22and he was going to sort the whole thing
87. 3:24out his personal assurance
88. 3:28so reluctantly i signed
89. 3:31the lead whistleblower is being told he
90. 3:34can't identify
91. 3:35the people involved the customers and he
92. 3:38can't
93. 3:38identify the corporate officials
94. 3:41who are involved the bank is an
95. 3:44economically rational actor
96. 3:46even if the bank is 90 sure that if it
97. 3:48went to court it would lose
98. 3:50it would still be rational for the bank
99. 3:52to sue me
100. 3:54because it would set an example to other
101. 3:56potential whistleblowers
102. 3:59we can't demonize regimes
103. 4:02and have our own little side industry of
104. 4:04people who are making money off their
105. 4:06money
106. 4:06it doesn't wash he is a man of
107. 4:09principles
108. 4:09you know and i think that that drove his
109. 4:11decision-making throughout the entire
110. 4:13process
111. 4:14even though you could tell that some of
112. 4:16the decisions
113. 4:17were extremely difficult for him to bear
114. 4:24some estonian newspaper decided that one
115. 4:26of the great questions
116. 4:28that needed to be answered about the
117. 4:29dansky bank story was who was the name
118. 4:31of the whistleblower and that was me
119. 4:33the criminal gets protection
120. 4:36of the identity the whistleblower's
121. 4:39identity
122. 4:39is leaked and there's nothing he can do
123. 4:41about
124. 4:45we weren't really pleased to have my
125. 4:48name come out it's not great from a
126. 4:50from a safety point of view whoever
127. 4:52outed him
128. 4:53you know wanted to make sure that he
129. 4:55felt intimidated
130. 5:00the people he exposed have very long
131. 5:02memories
132. 5:03i have no doubt that certainly
133. 5:06they will think he still knows secrets
134. 5:08that could be harmful to them
135. 5:10and the fact that he did what he did is
136. 5:12something that
137. 5:14they have a track record of not
138. 5:15forgiving he was told
139. 5:17right from the beginning that the
140. 5:20russian secret police were one
141. 5:22of the people controlling an account and
142. 5:25one of
143. 5:25putin's relatives had an account
144. 5:29and so yeah he will he will always be in
145. 5:31danger it's it's uh he's given himself a
146. 5:33life sentence
147. 5:45even though we can't be sure about the
148. 5:48dimensions of this problem and we can't
149. 5:50be sure
150. 5:51how much money we're talking about we
151. 5:54are more sure
152. 5:55or less unsure than we were because of
153. 5:58howard wilkinson's exposure
154. 6:00of dansko bank's crimes when you get a
155. 6:02whistleblower
156. 6:03like wilkinson who exposes something so
157. 6:07big
158. 6:07there will be accountability there will
159. 6:10be reforms
160. 6:12i think what he did was was i mean
161. 6:14principled and correct but also
162. 6:15incredibly brave
163. 6:17um and and it deserves
164. 6:20you know greater recognition than than
165. 6:23than it's received
166. 6:25one one hopes never to run into anything
167. 6:27like this but once you've run into it
168. 6:29you hope that when you report it really
169. 6:32to a proper level
170. 6:34that people will do something
171. 6:35appropriate about it
172. 6:38you know it's six years on now
173. 7:20you