How did Danske Bank's Estonian branch money laundering activities violate the duties the bank owed to consumers, regulators, and employees?

Well, first
and foremost, the bank was introducing funds from a potentially hostile source and was
incorporating them into its portfolios, supporting the Kremlin and Russian interests. Beyond
that, however, the bank had a major duty to primarily be truthful about its holdings, and
secondarily to show that it was supervising where its finances were coming from and how they
were being diverted.

By nature, money laundering is a lack of oversight.
Money laundering schemes use back channels to divert money through more legal- and ethical-
seeming avenues, when in reality they are being produced by criminal activity, unlawful
donations, or other similarly reprehensible avenues. While the bank itself may have prospered
due to these activities, it violated oversight and betrayed the trust of the investors and
customers of the bank.

Primarily, the ethical issues involved come from the
fact that the bank is lying about where its money is coming from. This gives an unstable source
of interest and income with which the customers are investing their money. If they knew their
dividends were being paid first with illegal money, and second with money that could stop at any
moment, they would be less likely to invest there and use that bank. Additionally, this misleads
the shareholders in the bank by advertising much more income than is actually being received.
When higher profits are shown that do not truly exist, it encourages investors to continue
investing in what may otherwise be a failing enterprise, and therefore allows them to lose their
hard earned money. In the end, the bank betrayed the trust it had from its customers and board
members and inflated its earnings while supporting hostile organizations.

There are clear-cut laws explaining the need for transparency and attempting to prevent
money laundering. In this case, the company clearly failed because they did not properly monitor
their branches to ensure that the funding that was received was legitimate. It is unfortunate,
because the Estonian branch of the bank was closed as a result, and many people lost money that
had been invested improperly.