ACTIONS CORNER
The Hessian Regional Labour Tribunal in Frankfurt has thrown out an appeal by 14 ex investment bankers from the former Dresdner Bank for full payment of their 2008 bonuses in the millions. Proceedings began on 20 September. The former Dresdner Kleinwort Investment Bank employees had already failed in an action before the Frankfurt Labour Tribunal, and now the higher court has found on appeal for Commerzbank, which had taken over the bank in 2009. Commerzbank had considerably reduced the bonuses after taking over Dresdner.
Daimler has paid Jürgen Grässlin the bulk of his costs of legal cases against the group, in a settlement. The best-known Daimler critic’s lawyer, Holger Rothbauer, confirmed a report to this effect in "Stuttgarter Nachrichten" on 9 September. The amount was in the high five digits. In return the Freiburg schoolteacher and author undertook in writing no longer to repeat particular accusations against Jürgen Schrempp and Dieter Zetsche. A year ago Grässlin won an action against the former CEOs in the Federal Court of Justice.
In the US, Daimler and Cerberus were sued by over 450 former Chrysler employees on 10 September. The former owners are claimed to be responsible for their company pensions, which they lost with the bankruptcy of the US carmaker last year. Losses of some 100 million dollars are involved. Both are accused of not having done enough to ring-fence the pension claims. Chrysler itself is explicitly excluded from claims. In 2007 Daimler transferred 80.1% of the shares to the financial investor, giving it control over Chrysler.
In the view of judge Dietrich Brand, Deutsche Bank made mistakes and offered a highly speculative financial product although it must have known that municipalities are not supposed to speculate with tax money. Accordingly, the city of Ravensburg and three further municipalities have won a partial victory in the lawsuit against the bank before Stuttgart Higher Regional Court for risky interest bets. Deutsche Bank was obliged to pay compensation for damages because it had not given advice in accordance with its duties. Brand called on both parties to talk together and reach a settlement, before he took his decision on 27 October.
The dispute between Deutsche Telekom and T-Online minority shareholders suing it reached an unappealable conclusion on 8 September before Frankfurt Higher Regional Court. According to the judgment, Telekom has to pay the shareholders in its once-listed former subsidiary a total of some 200 million Euros. The judges thus confirmed a decision by Frankfurt Regional Court which found an original payment of €1.15 per share in cash plus interest appropriate in connection with the merger of parent and subsidiary in June 2006.
Nürnberg-Fürth Regional Court has condemned Wilhelm Schelsky to pay Siemens compensation of €3.2m for damages. At the same time, the court rejected the action by the former head of employee organization AUB against his former employer for payment of alleged outstanding emoluments amounting to €391,000. The court found it was indisputable that Schelsky had diverted part of the Siemens payments totalling 30 million Euros to the AUB for his private purposes. Whether he is at all able to pay the amount is however not yet clear. During the trial Schelsky declared he is destitute.