ZURICH (Reuters – The former chief executive officer of a Swiss bank private was acquitted but the lender was fined 3.5M Swiss Francs ($3.8 Million) Wednesday by a court for helping a Gulf businessman to launder money in order to purchase luxury cars and property.

Eduardo Leemann (65) denied allegations by prosecutors that Falcon Private Bank chief executive Falcon Private Bank helped him launder illicit proceeds of 133M Euros ($150M) between 2012 and 2016.

Also, he was charged with making payments totalling 61 millions euros in an effort to support a lifestyle of high-life luxury that included fast cars and exclusive foreign properties.

The prosecution claimed that the money was obtained from an agreement the businessman arranged to sell shares in the Italian bank UniCredit SpA he had secretly owned at an exorbitant price to Aabar (an Emirati investment company) where he works.

It was found that it couldn’t be proven that Leemann knew about the criminal origin of assets. Leemann was therefore cleared of any money laundering.

However, it discovered that the bank did not comply with compliance regulations. It also didn’t have enough internal guidelines to stop money laundering.

Aabar’s Luxembourg arm was a private defendant in the case.

Falcon rose to global fame in 2015 when it was revealed that nearly $700,000,000 had been transferred between an account in Singapore and accounts in Malaysia connected to Najib Razak, then the Prime Minister.

FINMA, a Swiss watchdog found that Falcon failed to conduct adequate background checks on transactions and business relations with 1MDB Malaysian State Fund.

Falcon was owned by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Mubadala Investment Company. It closed its doors last year.

($1 = 0.8887 euros)