Deutsche Bank CEO acquitted of fraud
The co-CEO of Deutsche Bank has been acquitted of attempted fraud charges after a yearlong trial.
Juergen Fitschen’s charges were linked to the bank’s long-running battle with the heirs of a now-deceased media mogul – ABC reports.
The regional court in Munich handed down the verdict, which also acquitted Fitschen’s predecessors as CEO, Rolf Breuer and Josef Ackermann, as well as former Board Chairman Clemens Boersig and former top executive Tessen von Heydebreck.
Media mogul Leo Kirch said Breuer’s statements in a 2002 television interview questioning his creditworthiness led to the bankruptcy of his media empire.
Breuer said that “everything you can read and hear” is that the financial sector wasn’t prepared to loan more money to Kirch, a Deutsche Bank client.
Kirch’s indebted companies filed for bankruptcy protection several months later and he sued for damages in a case that dragged out for years – before he died in 2011.
Deutsche Bank paid Kirch’s heirs 925 million euros in 2014 to settle the matter.
Fitschen is due to leave his post as co-CEO on 19 May.
That would leave current co-CEO John Cryan as the sole boss at Germany’s biggest bank.
Source: Executive Grapevine
