ACTIONS CORNER
Commerzbank has to pay 104 former Dresdner Kleinwort investment bankers bonuses totalling €52 million. This was decided by a London court on 9 May after a months-long trial. The partially nationalized bank, which had taken over Dresdner Bank, including its investment banking, is the legal successor of the now liquidated division. In this context the institution had to take billions in government aid. The second-largest German bank was convinced it was right to reduce bonuses after the investment arm of Dresdner Bank had shown a loss of 6.5 billion euros in 2008, and reserves the right to appeal against the verdict.
The Deutsche Bank has settled a billion-dollar lawsuit with the U.S. government, by a payment of $202 million on 10 May. With the settlement, the case will now be shelved. Josef Ackermann had once in a restricted setting called the purchase of MortgageIT in 2007 for the equivalent of 340 million euros immediately before the outbreak of the financial crisis the “biggest mistake of my term.” The subsidiary is alleged to have mediated government default swaps for real-estate loans, without the mandatory full check on the debtors’ credit ratings.
After over ten years’ litigation in the mammoth case by retail investors against Deutsche Telekom, a judgment has come. Birgitta Schier-Ammann concluded that the approximately 17,000 small investors were not entitled to compensation, which they have sued for in the amount of around €80 million. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court had recognized no serious error in the stock-exchange prospectus for the T-Share, the judge announced on 16 May, dismissing the action of the model-case plaintiffs under the Capital Markets Model Case Act (KapMuG). The investors had been too careless.
Evonik Degussa is suing Gigaset for a contractual penalty in the amount of twelve million euros. The dispute centres on breach of contract after the sale of the Arques company Oxxynova. In 2006 the company, then trading as Arques Industries, acquired the corporate group from the chemical group. The chemicals specialist had, however, in late 2007 under the leadership of the then directors Peter Löw and Martin Vorderwülbecke, breached its obligation to maintain the Lülsdorf location. Thus the phone manufacturer’s contractual obligations had not been complied with, it was stated on 4 May in support of the claims.
Against RWE and Jürgen Großmann, a damages claim of almost 675 million euros has been filed at the Essen District Court. The complaint from Rustenburg had already been received in winter; at the present the deadline for the energy giant to reply is running. RWE and its outgoing chief were made jointly and severally liable by the Sintez subsidiary, since both RWE, and Großmann in personal conversations, had broken preliminary agreements with Sintez main owner Leonid Lebedev. Sintez had already filed a multi-billion lawsuit against RWE with a court in London four years ago.
In the many years of litigation between the two largest producers of business software, Oracle has fixed its compensation claims against SAP for infringement of copyright at at least $777 million. In September 2011, the presiding judge Phyllis Hamilton had conceded a decision that would have the DAX Group pay billions in damages for breach of copyright to California’s Oracle. The archrival of the Walldorf firm said in an application of 26 April that the company had the right to demand damages based on a “fair market value of the violated rights”.