Deutsche Bank Drama

Deutsche Bank Takes Out Full-Page Ad To Apologize For Its Market-Rigging Misconduct




Deutsche Bank took out full-page ads in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday, in which the country’s biggest lender apologized for (getting caught) engaging in market manipulation and misconduct that has cost the company billions. In the ad, signed by CEO John Cryan on behalf of the bank’s top management,the bank said its past conduct “not only cost us money, but also our reputation and trust.“
from Zero Hedge: 
The ad said “we in the management committee and bank leadership as a whole will do everything in our power to keep such cases from happening again.”
[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2017/01/15/db apology ad.jpg][/url]While Deutsche Bank’s transgressions culminated most recently with a December $7.2 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over its RMBS dealings in the years leading up to the financial crisis, other “misconduct” cases have included rigging Libor, the precious metals market, as well as money-laundering violations involving trades Russia.
As reported last Thursday, Deutsche Bank reported a larger than expected €1.9 billion Q4 loss, driven by ongoing legal settlements costs, declining equity-trading revenue and surging client redemptions from its asset management business. Cryan also offered an extensive apology at the news conference.
Deutsche Bank is in the midst of a wrenching restructuring, cutting costs and shedding riskier assets to meet tougher regulation aimed at preventing another financial crisis. In the latest aftershock from the relentless litigation against the bank, Deutsche Bank reportedly was set to announce layoffs of as much as 17% of staff in its equities unit and reduce fixed-income headcount by as much as 6%, while scrapping 2016 bonuses for as many as 90% of bankers.
Of course, the best gauge of whether Deutsche has “learned its lesson”, is to watch its actions in the coming months. With a repeal of the Volcker Rule looking increasingly likely under Donald Trump, the largest German bank may find it difficult not to engage in the same prop trading behavior that got it in serious trouble during the financial crisis.


Thanks to: https://theinternationalreporter.org

MORE FINES FOR DEUTSCHE BANK FOR RUSSIAN TRADES



If you’ve been following the strangeness in banking over the past few years (and decades for that matter) you’ll have noted certain names to keep popping up, and this is particularly the case in the aftermath of 9/11, and one of those names is Deutsche Bank. Unless one knows the story, the bland reporting of the Reuters article will cause those things to go completely unnoticed. Besides being under investigation in Italy for some shady trading deals implying the use of the float to generate money, and besides having already been hit with fines for other things, being under investigation for helping to rig the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), now the big German bank is being hit with fines for trades involving Russia:
by Joseph P Farrell:
Deutsche Bank fined for $10 billion sham Russian trades
Now, if one has been following the strangeness going on in Europe ever since the Advent and Epiphany of Mad Madame Merkel, one might get the idea that there is something very real and very messy going on behind the scenes; it is almost as if a covert warfare, much of it economic, were being waged against Germany; first the former German Foreign Minister, Steinmeir, gave a little talk in Berlin to assembled German businessmen a few years ago, informing them that Germany’s foreign policy would have to become more “militaristic”. He spouted a bunch of globaloney to buttress his position, but in the end, one didn’t really have a clear picture as to why it was necessary to do so. Then Germany announced it wanted to triple the size of its military and bring it back to Cold War standards of size, then Germany backed the creation of an all-European army, and now it wants to open its military to foreigners, EU army or no (see today’s “tidbit.”) Volkswagen was hit with stiff fines for falsifying its emissions by the USA, and Deutsche Bank is being hit with fine and after fine from Washington and London… then came BREXIT.  And through it all, persistent attacks on Deutsche Bank, a major bank within the Western system of finance. It almost leaves one with the impression that someone, somewhere, wants to drive it into the ground, or at least peel it away from that system.
Whether all of this be true or not is, alas, the subject perhaps of a more lengthy examination in the future, for it is not the subject for today’s high octane speculation.
What is of interest in the Reuters article by Karen Freifeld and Arno Schuetze is the following:

Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) has agreed to pay $630 million in fines for organizing $10 billion in sham trades that could have been used to launder money out of Russia, the latest in a string of penalties that have hammered the German lender’s finances.
In two detailed reports, U.S. and British regulators criticized the bank for not knowing the customers involved or the source of money for the trades, which helped buoy revenue during a slowdown following the global financial crash.
The scheme involved so-called mirror trades carried out between 2011 to 2015 – for instance, buying Russian stocks in roubles for a client and selling the identical value of a security for U.S. dollars for a related customer.

Note firstly that some of these trades were executed after the sanctions on Russia, and secondly, that it involved laundering money out of Russia. But then we’re told there are missing documents, and that apparently the US Department of Justice was looking even deeper:

Karl von Rohr, Deutsche Bank’s chief administrative officer, said the bank regretted its role in the Russian trades scheme and that it had since acted to address shortcomings.
He cautioned, however, that other authorities were investigating the trades and that the matter was not yet closed.
The U.S. Department of Justice is not part of the deal and is still looking into the trades. A spokesman declined to comment on its inquiry.

What disturbs me here is the potential that Deutsche Bank’s alleged activities, at least in so far as Reuters is reporting them, might represent a continuation of the “rape of Russia” policies that began shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, under the fragile government of Mr. Yeltsin. That rape had many players, among them the Bank of New York, and the Harvard Institute of International Development (See Anne Williamson ‘s “Testimony Before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the United States House of Representatives, Sept 21, 1999, here: BankstersInRussiaAndGlobalEconomy.htm). Yes, that’s the same Bank of New York that some 9/11 researchers implicate in mysterious securities clearing after 9/11, and that’s the same Harvard Institute of International Development that, according to Ms. Williamson, “advised” the Clinton Administration on its “austerity” policies. The result of those policies, argues Williamson, was the rape of the Russian people, and a massive transference of wealth into the hands of the old nomenklatura and into the hands of Western oligarchs.
So where’s the high octane speculation here? Note that the German bank’s activities would, as I suggested above, seem to fit this pattern. But also note the equally if far more curious thing that it is being fined for those activities. I see two possible ways to interpret this: (1) the German bank wanted “in on the action,” and is being slapped down for it, or (2) there has been a drastic “sea change” in the West itself toward Russia, and someone wants the “rape” and money laundering out of Russia to stop. Note that Deutsche Bank’s activities in this respect cover a period from 2011-2015, according to the article. And it was 2015 that one began to notice subtle clues that there was deep factional infighting taking place within the policy-making elites of the West. Mr. Kissinger began, about that time, to openly write about and to question the demonization of Russia, and made trips to Russia to visit Mr. Putin. The American primary campaign was underway, and now-President Trump began to openly question the “demonize Russia” policy.
So while long habit of thought prompts me to entertain the first interpretation, I cannot help but wonder if it is not the second one that is really in play. In either case, it will be interesting to see how the Germans will respond, because rest assured, there will be a response, but that response in turn, will be tailored by how well, or poorly, Mad Madame Merkel performs in the upcoming election.And of course, President Trump is a businessman, and can spot financial flows, and chicanery, with a practiced expert’s eye. And one can safely bet that financial flows will be a subject of much discussion between him and President Putin when they first meet. Oh to be an English and Russian speaking fly on the wall for that comparison of notes!
So in the final analysis, this probably is a case of “you tell me.”
See you on the flip side…

Thanks to: https://theinternationalreporter.org