Ex-Deutsche Bank Manager Sues Bank for at Least $624 Million
A former Deutsche Bank AG manager who says he was wrongfully blamed for the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA accounting scandal has sued the German lender in a London court for at least £473 million ($624 million) in damages.
Michele Faissola, the former head of Deutsche Bank’s asset and wealth management business, as well as other ex-employees are suing the bank for at least £664 million in total, according to the filing seen by Bloomberg.
Faissola and several other ex-traders last year ended mediation talks with Deutsche Bank over allegations they were wrongfully implicated in an audit report into the Monte dei Paschi affair. The group also includes Ivor Scott Dunbar, the former co-head of global capital markets; Matteo Angelo Vaghi, who previously lead the bank’s Italian sales operation; and former account manager Marco Veroni.
“Each of the claimants suffered and continue to suffer loss and damage,” Faissola, Dunbar, Vaghi and Veroni said in the court documents.
Faissola is also demanding damages for losses tied to a business entity that he helped found, called FAB Principals LP. He alleged that Deutsche Bank caused losses on that investment because of the criminal case, and that he reserves the right to seek further damages in due course.
Deutsche Bank has said in its annual report that it considers all such claims to be without merit and will defend itself against them robustly.
Stephan Leithner, who was formerly a managmenet board member at Deutsche Bank and is now CEO of Deutsche Boerse AG, is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. A spokesperson for Deutsche Boerse referred questions to Deutsche Bank and declined to comment further.
Earlier this year, Deutsche Bank settled a lawsuit with Michele Foresti, one of the former managers that had sued the bank.
Dario Schiraldi, a former manager in Deutsche Bank’s asset and wealth management division, has also filed a lawsuit in Frankfurt claiming around €152 million ($174 million) in damages. He alleges the lender harmed bankers’ careers in an Italian criminal case over the Monte dei Paschi scandal.
At the center of the claims is an audit report commissioned within Deutsche Bank in 2013 reviewing the accounting of repo deals the German lender did with the Italian bank. At the time, Christian Sewing, who is now chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank, was head of group audit and therefore responsible for that report. The ex-staffers argued that the review wasn’t handled neutrally and unfairly pinned the blame on them.
In the original Italian criminal case, Monte dei Paschi managers were accused of colluding with Deutsche Bank staff to hide losses at the Italian lender by using complex derivative trades, leading to a misrepresentation of the firm’s finances between 2008 and 2012. The ex-Deutsche Bank managers were also charged with market manipulation.
The six Deutsche Bank staffers were fully acquitted in 2022 by a Milan appeals court. In October 2023, Italy’s Supreme Court upheld the acquittal.
Top photo: Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. Photographer: Florian Wiegand/Getty Images. Bloomberg.