Exposing Deutsche Bank

Barron's (3/5/16) "Deutsche Bank May Lose Key Power to Run Pension Assets"

Regulators from London to Seoul have sanctioned Deutsche Bank...The accumulation of crimes has now taken on a life of its own... The U.S. Labor Department, for instance, is considering whether the German bank's two recent convictions for fraud in foreign countries should cost it the ability to manage billions of dollars of Americans' retirement funds.

In a ruling that has gone mostly unreported outside of official filings, the department tentatively denied Deutsche Bank's (ticker: DB) bid for an exemption from possible money-management restrictions. Because two units in other parts of the bank were convicted of felonies, the money management units have faced curbs on running U.S. pension money. At stake is Deutsche Bank’s official status as a qualified professional asset manager, or QPAM. The QPAM designation allows an asset manager to assume multiple roles in overseeing government-regulated Erisa pension plans...

The QPAM exemption is critical for Deutsche Bank to maintain its business in the United States," says Charles Field, a San Diego-based attorney...

Deutsche Bank's money management units had to seek an exemption because an affiliate was convicted of a felony. Without an exemption, the units would be barred from running certain retirement assets for 10 years...

Labor tentatively denied Deutsche Bank's bid for the 10-year exemption in September... Instead, Deutsche Bank was given a nine-month exemption...

The Labor Department issue is part of a cascade of bad news for the bank... Deutsche Bank lost about $7 billion in 2015, when its shares fell 20%. The stock is off 19% this year, more than twice the decline of U.S. financial stocks. The spreads on its credit default swaps, used by counterparties to insure against a default, have been widening, a worrisome sign...

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BloombergBusiness (1/25/16) reported in "Deutsche Bank Convicted With Trader for Korea Stock Manipulation" that Deutsche Bank was convicted and fined for its role in "erasing $23 billion in share values."
In April 2015, the bank, after pleading guilty to criminal charges, "agreed to pay a record $2.5 billion in penalties to resolve allegations in the U.S. and U.K. that it let employees" manipulate "Libor" and other rates up or down "to benefit their trading positions." According to Dow Jones Business News (5/4/15), after a divided Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to grant federal felon Deutsche Bank a waiver to continue certain business practices, SEC Commissioner Kara Stein, said "she couldn't find a basis to support an assertion that the bank's culture of compliance was dependable."
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who serves on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, released a report in January 2016 entitled "Rigged Justice: How Weak Enforcement Lets Corporate Offenders Off Easy." The report highlights 20 of the worst federal enforcement failures in 2015 and concludes: "Corporate criminals routinely escape meaningful prosecution for their misconduct." Deutsche Bank's Department of Justice (DOJ) LIBOR and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) derivatives settlements highlighted in this website are listed as two of the top 20 failures!

Several weeks after the LIBOR settlement, the SEC granted Deutsche Bank a waiver allowing the company to continue to enjoy special regulatory advantages designed to be available only to law-abiding banks and the SEC derivatives settlement was so small that one analyst stated that it "isn’t relevant for Deutsche Bank."

The report states: "The failure to enforce critical financial... laws has had a tremendous impact on the public...When federal agencies fail to enforce certain laws — especially those laws that are intended to curtail misconduct by large corporations and their senior executives — the consequences can be devastating."
Euromoney.com (May 2015) said, "A series of reports by regulators around the German bank's $2.5 billion fine raise more questions than answers...The report of the New York State Department of Financial Services...guarantees further embarrassment for the bank's current group executive committee members."

A June 17, 2015 letter from Culinary Workers Union Local 226 to the Nevada Gaming Commission and Gaming Control Board raising issue with felon Deutsche Bank being allowed to hold significant ownership stakes in casinos stated:

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority said of the banks then already implicated in rate rigging, Deutsche Bank was the first that was also fined for lying about it. Reuters reported on April 23, 2015, that the FCA found Deutsche Bank "stood out for the scale of the manipulation, the number of staff involved and for its lack of honesty and openness once the wrongdoing was under investigation."

According to an April 23, 2015 New York Times report, "The authorities also denounced the bank for lax oversight of traders and a failure to respond to warning signs of misconduct. The bank, authorities said, also dragged its feet in providing information, taking two years to provide audio recordings requested by investigators and accidentally destroying some evidence." Deutsche Bank had also claimed to the FCA in September 2013 that it was restricted from sharing a preliminary report prepared by German regulator BaFin into the bank's role in interbank rate rigging when it turned out the bank had recent internal advice to the contrary. BaFin has said it never bars a German bank from sharing a report with a foreign regulator.

With respect to Deutsche Bank "accidentally destroying some evidence," there seems to be a "Pattern and Practice" of the destruction of evidence since this is not the first time of this occurrence in Deutsche Bank's history since acquiring Bankers Trust Company.

New York City Public Advocate Report (8/15/17) Public Advocate Letitia James unveiled the ten banks that loan to the most buildings owned by landlords on the City’s Worst Landlord Watchlist. Deutsche Bank came in at #9 with 6 loans totaling $10,000,000. She called on these banks to reform their lending practices to protect tenants. "Banks should... stop funding the City’s Worst Landlords until they fix unsafe housing conditions," said Public Advocate Letitia James. "Banks must use their economic leverage to get bad landlords to take responsibility for maintaining basic living conditions in their buildings..."
ProPublica (2/9/17) reported that Deutsche Bank is President Trump's biggest "conflict of interest." The bank "is Trump’s major creditor, having lent billions to the president since the late 1990s even as other American banks abandoned Trump, who frequently bankrupted his businesses. While the president hasn’t released his tax returns, he has made public some information about his debts. According to these incomplete disclosures and reports, the Trump Organization has roughly $300 million in loans outstanding from the bank."

Deutsche Bank is still undergoing scrutiny by the Justice Department which is now headed by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Trump's highly controversial appointee!
Bloomberg (1/19/17) reported Deutsche Bank was sued in Florida by a Jewish charitable trust that claims the firm wrongly withheld as much as $3 billion from the heirs to a wealthy German family...Deutsche Bank has “refused to cooperate with the heirs of the Wertheim family fortune in the recovery and return of the monies that they are withholding from the rightful heirs,” and preventing the use of the funds for charitable and other purposes, according to the complaint filed in Fort Lauderdale.

Through a complex series of events, the assets were transferred in 1993 to Deutsche Bank, which misled the Wertheim heirs for many years about the accounts, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit seeks return of $3 billion and an accounting of the assets in dispute. The case is Wertheim Jewish Education Trust LLC v. Deutsche Bank AG, 17-cv-60120, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida (Fort Lauderdale). Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.
NewEurope reported (12/27/16) that Deutsche Bank will pay $7.2 billion for its role in the 2008 subprime mortgage scandal, a nearly 40% reduction from the original fine. It is expected that the news will hurt both the bank's profit projections and overall valuation. The settlement with Deutsche comes just a "few days after the revelation of a conflict of interest with President-elect Donald Trump, who owes Deutsche Bank $300 million."

The following comment was posted on the internet version of the article: Deutsche Bank (DB) is far from out of the woods! I'm a Shareholder, Widow and Legal Executrix of my husband's sizeable Estate and I know the deceit and treachery of DB and their lawyers White & Case and Pillsbury Winthrop. See "Stop Estate Fraud" and "McCormick Estate Fraud" for some of the details! DB has a minefield to navigate and that is something that no one is speaking about. DB requires at least 2 Exemptions (aka "Get Out of Jail Free Cards) to continue to manage and control the trillions in ERISA Pension Funds as a result of their criminal adventures!!! If DB doesn't get the Exemptions they have lost the ERISA Pension Funds management since criminals can't act in any Fiduciary capacity. DB has "Rigged" a slew of markets (LIBOR et al.). Now let's see how they "Rig" this one!
Reuters ( 12/2/16) reported Deutsche Bank will pay a $258 million penalty to settle charges that it did business on behalf of entities in U.S.-sanctioned countries like Iran and Syria, according to the New York Department of Financial Services and Federal Reserve. The bank conducted $10.9 billion in clearing transactions from 1999 to 2006, using “nontransparent methods and practices” to shield them from scrutiny. The settlement requires Deutsche Bank to hire an independent monitor and fire six employees.
Der Spiegel (10/28/16) reported in an article, "The Deutsche Bank Downfall: How a Pillar of German Banking Lost Its Way"... "Deutsche Bank is broken. It might be able to extract itself from the 7,800 lawsuits it is currently involved in, or it may shrink to the point that it will no longer pose a systemic risk, or it may manage to find investors to help it scrape together sufficient capital to fulfill legal requirements. In the most extreme case, it may even be bailed out by the German state. But it is broken nonetheless...
Investopedia (10/26/16) reported on Bloomberg and Financial Times stories that Deutsche Bank has already seen massive redemptions throughout the year. "Earlier in October, Bloomberg reported that hedge fund clients had decided to pull out several billion dollars from the prime brokerage arm of the bank, further complicating Deutsche's ongoing liquidity concerns. Now, in most recent report by the Financial Times, it appears that another wing of the bank is facing a wave of redemptions as well...investors have withdrawn about $8 billion in cash from the Deutsche exchange traded fund wing so far in 2016. This is the latest in a string of bad news items for the German bank, which is facing speculation about collapse or a bailout by the German government."
Law360 (10/21/16) reports that several members of the European Parliament are questioning European regulators giving Deutsche Bank special dispositions to help improve the bank's stress test score. Doing so,they say undermines the credibility that European banks are actually healthy and are being held to account. This is especially disconcerting since Deutsche Bank is currently fighting the U.S. Department of Justice's efforts to wrangle a $14 billion settlement over the bank's mortgage-backed securities sales, prompting questions of whether Deutsche would require government intervention to stay afloat.
Reuters (10/17/16) reported Deutsche Bank AG has agreed to pay $38 million to settle U.S. litigation over allegations it illegally conspired with other banks to fix silver prices at the expense of investors, according to court papers.
Zero Hedge (9/9/16) reports in "Italy's PM Unloads On Deutsche Bank's Unfixable Problem: 'Hundreds And Hundreds Of Billions Of Derivatives'": After a tumultuous week for Deutsche Bank which saw the DOJ [U.S. Department of Justice] demand a $14 billion settlement for the bank's past RMBS [residential mortgage-backed securities] transgressions, it was another bad day for the giant German lender, whose stock and contingent converts tumbled after the investing community realized that even a modest $5.5 billion final settlement would leave it perilously undercapitalized and likely scrambling to raise more cash.
Financial Times (9/9/16) reported Deutsche Bank "is expected to face a demand to pay about $2.4bn to settle the US Department of Justice's investigation into alleged mis-selling of mortgage-backed securities..."
Zero Hedge (9/4/16): Reggie Middleton reports that "Deutsche Bank is a mess" and "Everyone knows that Deutsche Bank is a basket case." He goes on to explain how "internal fraud" represented 23% of the bank's losses in 2015 which is about 10% more than the previous five years combined. He asks: "What the hell is going on in this bank? More importantly, why is it getting so much worse?"
Financial Times (8/18/16) published a commentary by Eric Ben-Artzi, former Deutsche Bank risk analyst and whistleblower. Now a vice president of risk analytics for BandIT, Mr. Ben-Artzi explained why he would not accept his multi-million share of the whistleblower award from the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) for informing regulators that colleagues at the bank were involved in improper accounting and inflating the value of Deutsche's massive portfolio of credit derivatives.

He admonished the SEC for its lax enforcement and how, instead of holding Deutsche Bank executives accountable, allowed them to retire with big bonuses "based on misrepresentation of the bank's balance sheet." He also pointed out the shameful revolving door ties between Deutsche and the SEC and in particular SEC Chair Mary Jo White's close ties with top Deutsche Bank/SEC revolving door lawyers/enforcement officials. He pointed out that "top SEC lawyers had held senior posts at the bank, moving in and out of top positions at the regulator even as the investigations into malfeasance at Deutsche were ongoing." He said he wanted his share of the award to go to the victims, the shareholders and protecting the bank's employees. The only way he said he could accept the whistleblower award is if it was paid from bonuses taken back from executives who benefitted from the fraud.
Out-law.com (8/10/16) reported: Deutsche Bank has been fined $12.5 million for failing to control the information transmitted over its internal speaker system designed to pass confidential and price-sensitive research and trading information to employees. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said Deutsche Bank "ignored 'red flags' including internal audit findings and recommendations, multiple internal warnings from members of the firm's compliance department, and internal risk assessments, and failed to put policies and procedures in place to control this..." Brad Bennett, FINRA's vice president said: "Deutsche Bank's disregard of years of red flags ... was particularly egregious given the risk that material non-public information could be communicated over squawk boxes."
Daily News Egypt (8/9/16) reported: "Investors such as pension funds, which are mandated to put their money into safe, long-term investments, have been pulling their money out of Deutsche Bank shares. Moody’s, the US-based ratings agency, has adjusted Deutsche’s rating accordingly; it’s now just two notches above “junk” status. That, in turn, is driving up the bank’s refinancing costs."
Sunday Express (7/18/16) reported that Deutsche Bank will close 188 branches across Germany as its share prices plummeted 48%, an all-time low. The bank has also pulled out of 10 foreign markets including Russia and Australia and is poised to cut thousands of full-time jobs. Financial expert Max Kaiser says Deutsche Bank is "technically insolvent" and runs a "ponzi scheme" and adds "This is a dead bank walking."
The Street (7/5/16): Chris Vermeulen reports: "Remember Lehman Brothers and the chaos that it created when it failed? If you think that the Worlds' Central Banks are now wiser and consequently will not allow another similar event to occur, think again. We will not only see a repeat of this occurrence, but it could be exponentially larger than Lehman's was...On June 29, the IMF stated that "among the [globally systemically important banks], Deutsche Bank appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks...Now the bad news: For two years in a row, the American unit of Deutsche Bank has failed the Fed's stress test, which determines the ability of the bank to weather another financial crisis."
GoldSeek.com (6/14/16) reported: Deutsche Bank stocks are hitting all-time lows... DB stock was down over 3% yesterday on a day when most big TBTF [Too Big To Fail] banks were down 1% or less. It’s down another 3% as I write this today, trading below $15/share for the first time ever. This bank is obviously collapsing and any money manager who holds onto this stock for clients is in serious breach of fiduciary duty. This is the 2016 version of Enron.
Bloomberg (6/13/16) reported: "Seven former Deutsche Bank AG managers were found guilty by a German court of participating in a conspiracy to cheat on value-added tax refunds for carbon-emissions trading. The bankers participated in a 'criminal business model' that sidestepped 145 million euros ($163 million) in taxes, Presiding Judge Martin Bach said at a court hearing Monday in Frankfurt...Law-enforcement officials are still investigating 15 people who worked or are still working for the bank."
Bloomberg (6/9/16) reported: Barclays analysts Jeremy Sigee, Kiri Vijayarajah and Thomas Klocanas wrote a note to investors stating Deutsche Bank AG may face settlement payments of as much as $4.5 billion to resolve U.S. claims over the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the financial crisis.
Reuters (5/18/16) reported that Deutsche Bank is one of five major banks sued that day in a private U.S. lawsuit alleging they conspired to rig prices worldwide in a more than $9 trillion market for bonds issued by government-linked organizations and agencies. The lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court by the Boston Retirement System said the collusion dates to at least 2005, was conducted through chatrooms and instant messaging, and caused investors to overpay for bonds they bought or accept low prices for bonds they sold while defendants reaped millions in profits.
Zack's Analyst Blog (5/6/16) reported that Deutsche Bank AG is among seven major banks awaiting approval, from a Manhattan federal court, of a recent settlement over "manipulation of ISDAfix rates, a benchmark used to appraise interest rate derivatives, commercial real estate mortgages and structured debt securities.

"Numerous pension funds and municipalities" sued the banks "for manipulating the ISDAfix benchmark for personal gains in the 2009–2012 period." Deutsche Bank will pay a $50 million penalty.

Additionally, the banks are awaiting approval from the court which will also settle antitrust charges against the banks.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman permitted investors led by several pension funds and municipalities to pursue antitrust and breach-of-contract claims over ISDAfix rigging against most defendants. According to the judge, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547's Alaska Electrical Pension Fund and other investors raised "plausible allegations that a conspiracy among the defendants existed."

The banks allegedly "colluded to rig ISDAfix rates by rapidly executing trades just before the rate was supposed to be determined and delaying the processing of trades until it was fixed. This allowed the banks to manipulate the payments made to investors on derivative trades. Such action adversely impacted trillions of dollars of financial instruments tied to ISDAfix rates."
The Seattle Times (5/6/16) reported that Italian prosecutors are investigating top former Deutsche Bank management for market manipulation related to the sale of 7 billion euros of Italian government bonds in 2011. Five former managers, including former CEOs Josef Ackermann and Anshu Jain and current co-CEO Juergen Fitschen, are being investigated for allegedly manipulating the market by saying publicly that Italy's debt was sustainable while hiding plans to dispose of most of the bank's 8-billion-euro Italian debt load.
Reuters (4/14/16) reported that Deutsche Bank agreed to settle litigation after precious metal future traders sued Deutsche Bank and a group of other banks in U.S. Federal Court alleging they unlawfully manipulated the price of gold and silver at the expense of investors. Deutsche has agreed to pay fines and provide evidence against other banks involved in the price-fixing.

Investors had accused the banks of violating U.S. antitrust law by dictating the price in trading tens of billions of dollars of the precious metals through secret, daily meetings known as the Silver Fix and Gold Fix.
Yahoo News (3/30/16) reported that Deutsche Bank will pay more than $4 million to settle allegations that it failed to properly report data on millions of options trades between 2010 and 2015, according to a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) document. "Deutsche Bank failed to report certain information during the period and also inaccurately reported other details, FINRA said."
Lawyer Herald (2/4/16) reported that a lawsuit filed in the U.S. against Deutsche Bank is seeking $3.1 billion of investor's losses concerning the bank's failure to monitor 10 trusts under a toxic residential mortgage. According to the trustees, the Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. ignored the widespread deficiencies on how the underlying loans were managed and serviced.
UPI (11/12/15) reported that a Montana jury ordered Deutsche Bank to pay more than $2 million to a couple whose paid-off home was foreclosed on and sold by the bank. The homeowner's lawyer "argued the situation was not a series of clerical errors, but an intentional 'disregard or indifference' which could be construed as malice" toward the homeowner. A 12-person jury in Yellowstone County, Mont., District Court awarded the family $450,000 in compensatory damages and $1.6 million in punitive damages from the bank.
MarketWatch (10/9/15) reported on Deutsche Bank's disenchantment with Bankers Trust Company particularly around its derivatives marketing scandal uncovered in the 1990's, which has continued to affect the Bank's profitability. Large corporate clients like Procter & Gamble successfully sued Bankers Trust Company in federal court for misleading clients and failing to disclose risks of its derivatives trading. The client's key evidence was found in reviewing 300,000 pages of Bankers Trust documents and the discovery of 6,500 secret tape recordings between brokers at Bankers Trust where "Bankers Trust traders were heard saying, 'We set 'em up.'"

Procter & Gamble charged Bankers Trust "Engaged in a pervasive pattern of fraud spanning a number of years and involving a number of victims." Charges, among other things, included: "Fraud was so pervasive and institutionalized that Bankers Trust employees used the acronym 'ROF' — short for rip-off factor — to describe one method of fleecing clients; "Customers were induced "to purchase complex derivative deals that produced high profits for the bank and often big losses for many of its clients;" and the bank "Misrepresented to clients the pricing, current value and risks of the products it sold."
BloombergBusiness (7/27/15) reported the co-head of Deutsche Bank's Asian Corporate Finance was placed on leave earlier this year while investigations continue over questionable fund transfers to Deutsche Bank's Securities joint venture in China.
Financial Times (7/15/15) reported that Deutsche Bank is being investigated over a possible multi-billion dollar money laundering scheme for Russian clients in Moscow involving trades carried out over a period of four years ending in early 2015.
Corporate Crime Reporter (6/1/15) reported that Deutsche Bank will pay $55 million to settle charges that the bank "filed financial reports during the height of the financial crisis that failed to take into account a material risk for potential losses estimated to be in the billions of dollars." SEC's Division of Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney stated, "Deutsche Bank failed to make reasonable judgments when valuing its positions and lacked robust internal controls over financial reporting."
Reuters (5/17/15) reported that Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA), Financial Services Committee Ranking Member, is calling for a public hearing to vet a request by Deutsche Bank to continue managing retirement (ERISA) accounts. "I'm troubled to see yet another bank plead guilty to criminal charges only to turn around and ask federal regulators to allow it to continue doing business as if it has done nothing wrong," Ms. Waters said.
BloombergBusiness (5/13/15) reported that Deutsche Bank "is among a group of banks accused of colluding to prevent exchanges from entering the credit default swaps business from 2006 to 2009. The EU's swaps case added another potential scandal for the banking industry..."
Forbes.com (4/15/15) reported that the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) imposed its largest fine ever when it fined Deutsche for "inadequate controls over money laundering." The DFSA gave as reasons for the record fine, "serious contraventions...including misleading the DFSA."
Reuters (5/22/14) reported that Deutsche Bank faces "around 1,000 major lawsuits." Klaus Neiding, spokesperson for private investors, commented that, "Deutsche Bank today is a huge law office with banking operations attached." Others describe the symbiotic relationship between Deutsche Bank and its primary law firms as "a decades long cesspool of corruption." In June 2015, numerous news outlets reporting on the resignation of Deutsche Bank's Co-CEO said the bank is "mired in about 6,000 different litigation cases."
Latin Lawyer (3/4/14) reported Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay US$20 million to settle charges that it helped manage funds embezzled by former officials of the city of São Paulo.
Reuters (2/20/14) reported Deutsche Bank AG will pay about 925 million euros ($1.27 billion) to settle a 12-year-old dispute with the heirs of Leo Kirch over the collapse of the Kirch Group's media empire. The bank had been accused of causing the collapse while orchestrating a fraudulent scheme to force Leo Kirch into bankruptcy so that the bank could reap "hefty fees helping the group to restructure." The bank also paid Kirch's substantial legal fees.
Reuters (12/20/13) reported that Deutsche Bank "will pay $1.9 billion to settle claims that it defrauded two U.S. government-controlled companies in the sale of mortgaged backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis." The story described it as "the secondlargest regulatory settlement over claims banks engaged in fraud in packaging and selling mortgaged-backed securities..."
Los Angeles Times (5/5/11) reported that Los Angeles filed a civil lawsuit against Deutsche Bank claiming the bank is one of the biggest "slumlords" in the city. Prosecutors found evidence that the bank "illegally evicted some tenants, let others live in squalor and allowed hundreds of unoccupied properties to turn into graffiti-scarred dens for squatters, gang members and other criminals."

Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance

Forbes (11/30/15) reported in "Doesn't Look Like Much Has Really Changed at Deutsche Bank" by Frances Coppola that: "Barely a week goes by without Deutsche Bank featuring in the news for some reason, usually a bad one. This time, it's tax avoidance. The FT reports that Deutsche Bank 'has been devising complex tax avoidance strategies for some of its largest corporate clients...'

For some time now, governments concerned about deteriorating fiscal finances have been clamping down on creative schemes for minimizing taxation. Complex legal structures that have no purpose other than avoiding taxation are now themselves illegal in many countries: banks, accountants and tax lawyers that create them for themselves OR offer them to clients are breaking the law. So the latest fashion is tax-minimizing schemes that appear to have commercial justification. This is what Deutsche Bank has been offering to its corporate clients...

Brazil, eh... whose economy is on the skids and whose fiscal deficit is heading for the moon? It's hardly the most politically stable country on earth, and its new government is desperately short of money. The last thing it needs is a large German bank helping Brazilian corporations avoid tax. These schemes may potentially be good business, but they are not good behavior.

Nor were Deutsche's schemes limited to Brazil and Austria. Mexico features too, along with Luxembourg. On what planet is it morally justifiable for a European bank to offer to help corporations in a country as poor as Mexico to avoid tax — let alone move the funds to a country that has become rich principally by draining tax revenues from its neighbors?
Reuters (11/24/15) reported in "Update 1-Deutsche Bank unit to pay $31 mln, avoid U.S.charges on aiding tax evasion" that: "A Deutsche Bank AG unit will pay more than $31 million to the U.S. Justice Department to avoid possible prosecution for helping Americans to evade taxes, the department said on Tuesday. Deutsche Bank's Swiss unit offered a number of services and permitted some practices that it knew could, and did, assist U.S. taxpayers in concealing assets and income from the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department said."
Reuters (9/24/15) reported that a federal judge refused to dismiss a U.S. government lawsuit charging Deutsche Bank with $190 million in tax fraud liabilities due the U.S. Treasury from a scheme in 2000 using shell companies to evade paying taxes.
Agence France-Presse (8/13/15) reported that German prosecutors charged one former and seven current Deutsche Bank employees with evasion of taxes on trading carbon emission certificates. "The scheme is estimated to have cost Germany around 220 million euros ($244 million) in unpaid taxes via the purchase and sale of carbon emission certificates abroad."
Associated Press (5/25/2011) reported in "Deutsche Bank Fraud Probe Leads To $550 Million Settlement that: "Federal authorities say Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay more than $550 million to resolve a federal tax shelter fraud investigation. Authorities announced Tuesday that the bank also admitted criminal wrongdoing in connection with its participation in financial transactions that aided tax shelters. The government says the transactions generated billions of dollars in U.S. tax losses..."

"Milk, Exit and Ignore" Business Strategy

To this day, customers and potential customers of Deutsche Bank financial services must ask: How does Deutsche Bank/Bankers Trust Company explain the disturbing contents of a confidential Bankers Trust Company "Market Segmentation Analysis Report" spotlighting its 'milk, exit and ignore" business strategy?

Bankers Trust issued the confidential Market Segmentation Analysis Report dated April 13, 1998 for its Weekly Global Institutional Sales (GIS) Executive Staff Meeting. GIS, which was changed to Global Asset Management, referred to the "group that sell investment management and other ancillary services to Institutional clients; i.e., corporations, endowments & foundations, taft hartley (unions) and public funds (states, counties, cities, water and school districts, airport authorities, transportation agencies, etc.)."

The report stated: "GIS clients and segments have been categorized into three different categories based upon current IBBT (Income Before Bonuses and Taxes) per client potential profitability to Bankers Trust: 'invest and grow' segments; 'test and improve' segments; and 'milk, exit and ignore segments'...There will be two levels of sales and services depending upon the size and attractiveness of the client rather than providing the same level of services to all clients."

The "Confidential Market Segmentation Analysis Memo" stated "BT wishes to retain and offer exemplary services to only those clients whose annual revenues to BT provide a (minimum) 20% profit margin...Those existing clients deemed profitable will receive kid gloves treatment, frequent visits in their offices, wining/dining, annual client conferences in posh locations...Those deemed to be unprofitable (falling below the 20% benchmark) will no longer receive visits...no invitations will be extended to attend the client conferences...if the client calls with a question, it will be answered (period). No other 'client service' will be extended..."

The memo went on to emphasize that BT wanted to "reduce/eliminate the bottom 80/90% of their business and just deal with the top 10/20%." The bank instituted a policy of "repricing to exit --increasing the fees until the clients scream 'Uncle' and leave Bankers Trust (less bad press than would result from BT going to those clients and saying 'We don't want your business any longer' — they would rather force them out through increased fees and reduced services)."

Trusts and estates like that of Edmund J. McCormick, highlighted in this website, normally do not have portability so apparently, according to widow and executrix Suzanne McCormick, "get bled dry by the bank and its attorneys."

Deutsche Bank customers and potential customers must demand an answer to this question: Does the "milk, exit and ignore" business strategy reflect the policies and practices of Deutsche Bank's Global Asset Management today and which union and public funds since 1998 were categorized as "milk, exit and ignore?"

Additional Information on Deutsche Bank's Criminal History

For additional information on the criminal history of Deutsche Bank, including its deep involvement supporting Hitler and the Nazi regime, please read Philip Mattera's reports by visiting the Corporate Research Project/Good Jobs First website:

Deutsche Bank: Corporate Rap Sheet: www.corp-research.org/deutsche-bank

Deutsche Bank: Violations Tracker: www.violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php