In 2015, the leadership of SSE was informed by the news agency Reuters that the School had been mentioned as a recipient of donations from Jeffrey Epstein. Following an internal review, we were able to conclude that two foundations, Enhanced Education and the C.O.U.Q. Foundation, were linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

For several years, these foundations had donated to the Barbro Ehnbom Fund, which was a separate entity and was controlled by SSE alumna Barbro Ehnbom. The Stockholm School of Economics administered the fund but did not exercise active control over incoming donations and was not aware of who was behind the two foundations. At that time, we concluded that our internal controls regarding donors had been insufficient.

As soon as the leadership of the Stockholm School of Economics learned of the donations in 2015, an administrative separation between the Barbro Ehnbom Fund and the Stockholm School of Economics was carried out. We also terminated our collaboration with Barbro Ehnbom and assumed responsibility for the scholarship she had established, Female Economist of the Year, which has since been discontinued.

Since then, we have taken active steps to strengthen the controls on incoming funds. Even so, we cannot guarantee that there is no information about donors that we are not aware of. Our activities are to a very large extent financed by private funding from companies, foundations, and individuals, which makes this a substantial undertaking, but it is extremely important, and we devote significant efforts to continuously improving our controls.

The Stockholm School of Economics has been transparent about what emerged from our review, and we informed both our internal community and our external stakeholders about what we knew.

We are appalled by these reports and would once again like to make clear that we strongly distance ourselves from everything that has come to light thanks to the work of the media.