Germany’s financial regulator has said it won’t take further action against the country’s largest bank over alleged interest rate rigging and precious metals price fixing. The moves takes the spotlight off a former boss.
The watchdog, known as Bafin, announced on Thursday it had ended several major special audits against Deutsche Bank.
“Bafin does not see the need to take further action against the bank or former and current members of the management board with respect to the closed special audits,” the bank said. “We have taken many steps to improve our controls and processes and to strengthen the Bank’s governance,” CEO John Cryan said on Thursday.
Deutsche Bank paid $2.5 billion (2.26 billion euros) in fines in April, last year, after investigations of manipulating interest rates.
The bank was also probed for its role in rigging prices of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. It also recorded a multibillion-euro loss for 2015.
Bafin officials also closed a special audit into a derivatives trade that Deutsche Bank made with Italian bank Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.
Charges were also dropped against Deutsche Bank’s former co-head Anshu Jain, accused of misleading regulators during investigations into interest rate manipulation.
The audit agency told Reuters news agency last December that it had found no indication as to whether Jain knew anything about people in the bank manipulating interest rates.
But Bafin was still investigating $10 billion in suspicious trades made by the Deutsche Bank’s Moscow office, while Italian investigators look into the Monte dei Paschi irregularities.
Last week, former and current managers of Deutsche Bank, Monte dei Paschi and Nomura were sent to trial by Milan prosecutors for false accounting and other alleged financial crimes.
-DW.COM
