How the ECB is Officially Above the Law

It all began with an early morning police raid. On July 6, Slovenian Police, acting on an insider tip, stormed the headquarters of the country’s central bank, the Bank of Slovenia, and seized information stored on the bank’s internal network. It also raided the headquarters of the major state-owned bank Nova Ljubljanksa and the local offices of international accountancy firms (and prolific enablers of corporate misbehavior), Ernst & Young and Deloitte.

The police were investigating allegations that some “legal entities” had abused their office in valuing equity at Nova Ljubljanksa during its bailout by the state in 2013. €257 million is alleged to have been misappropriated, during the €3.2 billion bailout of the banks.

The action provoked a furious backlash from ECB chairman Mario Draghi, who wrote the following in a strongly worded letter:

The ECB deplores that there was no attempt to find a solution reconciling the conduct of the pre-criminal investigations with the ECB’s privilege on inviolability of its archives…

The ECB also regrets that the actions of the Slovenian Police risk putting into question the fulfilment of the Bank of Slovenia’s tasks as a member of the Eurosystem, as well as that of its governor in his personal capacity as a member of the Governing Council of the ECB.

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