ACTIONS CORNER

BayernLB is suing the Deutsche Bank in New York for damages for its losses in securitized home loans. The Landesbank had losses with a nominal volume of €810 million on Deutsche Bank's U.S. securities. The Frankfurt bank had deliberately given false information on the quality of the RMBS (residential mortgage-backed securities) portfolio, runs the accusation. The largest German bank has, as in all similar cases, rejected the accusations as unfounded, and is defending itself with all possible means. In early February two similar complaints against the Deutsche Bank were rejected.

Rolf Breuer appeared on 18 April before the Munich Higher Regional Court in the multi-billion KGL Pool trial once again after five months, after extra-judicial settlement negotiations were broken off by Deutsche Bank in early March - apparently 800 million euros were too much, even for the top German bank - and the court had also rejected the November 2011 challenge for bias.

The focus of the hearing was, among other things, Peter Kahn.  The former deputy chairman of Bayerische Landesbank reported a meeting at the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt on 14 February 2002. Kahn was also able to show a record of that meeting. According to it, the defendant Breuer had then stated that Leo Kirch's media group was heavily in debt and must necessarily be restructured because of impending illiquidity. A sale of the majority to Premiere and Formula 1 had previously been rejected by Leo Kirch in a private conversation with Breuer. The sale of the Springer and Telcinco shares was according to Kirch already in final negotiations, however. While the lenders (Dresdner Bank, HVB, DZ Bank and BayernLB) were trying to avoid a bankruptcy, they were involved with various securities and were unable to reach agreement among themselves.Already in November 2001 the DZ Bank, led by Ulrich Brixner, had no longer been willing to continue to engage with the media group. Brixner even then doubted the actual total indebtedness of the media group, long before the Breuer interview was conducted on 3 February 2002. That had, however, made the banks more cautious, making decisions in the Frankfurt round more difficult.