The Bank's : Passion to Perform Illegally. A 146 year old bank ...

As spreads thin and shareholder expectations are high, membrane between what is right and what is wrong perhaps thins out.

1. Deutsche Bank AG (DB) increased its litigation reserves by 1.21 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in the third quarter.

2. DB  said admitted that it found violations of internal policies and identified weaknesses in its oversight regime during its probe into the so-called mirror trades.

3. It stated it may have allowed Deutsche Bank’s Russian clients to move funds out of the country without properly alerting authorities.

4. DB was a pass through mechanism for $6 billion in transactions that were part of a possible money-laundering scheme.

5. German management systems are too 'snoopervising' for the bank's senior officials not to know of wrong doings in the regions. They are all seasoned and suspicious bankers who behind the veneer of  supportiveness rule DB with a  strong hand.   So the excuse that IT systems and/ or subordinates did it all  might be just about passing on accountability.  

6. In April, 2015,  the bank was fined a record $2.5 billion by regulators from the UK and US for manipulating market key rates including Libor, the benchmark for interest rates on trillions of dollars of financial contracts.

7. It has also yet to settle with U.S. authorities over alleged sanctions-related violations, for moving funds through the U.S. financial system for countries such as which were under sanctions. 

8. DB has been named as a defendant in several alleged class action lawsuits in the U.S. for manipulating U.S. government bond market.

9. DB is  on investigation radar for manipulating currency markets, lawsuits relating to U.S. mortgage-backed securities and a probe into whether the company broke U.S. trade sanctions against countries like Sudan and Iran who had sanctions.  

10. DB was fined $600 million by the DFS, part of fines totalling $2.5 billion by US and British authorities for rigging Libor interest rates, used to peg millions of contracts around the world, in a multi-bank conspiracy. 

11. Regulators said DB was  “repeatedly misleading” the regulator.   ( in case of Libor  rigging ) enquiries .

12. The Dubai Financial Services Authority imposed the biggest fine in its 10-year history on Deutsche Bank. The US$8.4 million fine was for breaches of the DFSA’s rules regarding the bank’s private banking business in Dubai. The fine came at end of a long-running dispute between the DFSA and Deutsche relating to events beginning in 2011. The regulator said the fine had been imposed for “serious contraventions” relating  to:

• misleading the DFSA,
• failures in D B’s internal governance and systems and controls
• in its client take-on and
• anti-money laundering   

The DFSA said its action followed an investigation into Deutsche’s DIFC operation which focused on its activities from January 2011 to January 2014.

13. Court proceedings have opened in Germany against five German bank managers, including former DB  co-CEO Jürgen Fitschen, former board members Rolf Breuer and Josef Ackermann, and other executive members, charged with fraudulent collaboration, 

14. These relate to the bankruptcy of media entrepreneur Leo Kirch. The prosecution accuses them of having tried to deceive the court with lies and illegal collusion in a civil case last year. That trial had led to an extrajudicial payment of €925 million.

 Tailpiece!!!

The bank has been “advised that it’s not our job to try and find out where the money comes from or where it goes to,” Cryan told reporters in Frankfurt on Thursday. The audacity of power!!!

Whatever happened to DB's  booklet on money laundering?

  Comments:
Fears why it took so long for Deutsche to come clean: there are reports the suspect trades were executed over several  years. This blog's fear is that the bank may have helped several pass throughs since 1990s  when it was Europe's foremost bank for several years..Politically it suited a German bank  perhaps to be an alternative to US and UK banks  and to appeal to the high client  net worth clients who desired to holiday among  the German  Castles  and deposit in the dark vaults of Tanusanlage. (No credits only Debits !!!)

Deutsche Bank commenced business on 9 April, 1870, in Berlin. The Bank's first premises – a two-storey rented building at Französische Strasse 21 in Berlin