Deutsche Bank Tops Up Litigation Pot by €630m

Deutsche Bank's profit plunged during the second quarter after the financial firm set a further €630m aside for litigation charges.

The Frankfurt-based bank is facing further investigations related to Libor manipulation as well as a number of civil lawsuits in the US, linked to its involvement in the residential mortgage-backed securities market, which triggered the global financial crisis in 2007.

Net profit at Deutsche fell 49% in the three months to June to €335m (£290m, $444.4m). Core revenues grew 5% on the year to €8bn during the quarter.

"In the second quarter our core businesses performed well, our franchise remained strong, and we continued to reconfigure our platform to serve our clients more effectively," said Jürgen Fitschen and Anshu Jain, co-chief executives, in Deutsche's statement.

"We took an important step toward our objective of placing Deutsche Bank at the forefront of cultural change with the launch of our new values and supporting beliefs. In the months ahead, together with our senior leaders from across Deutsche Bank, we will work on embedding these values."

During the second quarter, Deutsche also reached its 2015 capital ratio target of 10%. The target, set under the Basel III agreement, is a regulatory requirement to ensure banks have enough capital behind them as a buffer for any future crisis and therefore protecting taxpayers from the need for more bailouts.

Litigation

After setting aside the additional litigation money, Deutsche's total pot for potential payouts stands at €3bn. It is the second consecutive quarter that Deutsche has added cash to its litigation pot.

Deutsche has already been the subject of a number of lawsuits in the US. The bank was fined $17.5m by Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin for failing to disclose conflicts of interest when marketing collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) to investors.

A CDO is an investment backed by pools of bonds, loans or other assets and frequently include mortgage-backed securities.

The Massachusetts securities regulator said Galvin said Deutsche Bank Securities, a unit of the bank, failed to supervise its employees who "knew but failed to disclose" such conflicts concerning its various roles related to a $1.56bn hybrid-CDO mortgage product known as 'Carina'.

In May 2012, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $202m to the US Department of Justice to settle civil charges, filed in the previous year, that it defrauded the US government over the resale of risky mortgages.

The regulator said Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary, MortgageIT, lied to get Federal Housing Administration insurance for its loans after years of reckless lending practices.

As part of the settlement, Deutsche Bank admitted responsibility, which cost the Federal government $386m when the mortgages defaulted.

Deutsche is one of the many banks under investigation by European and US regulators over allegations that some of its staff attempted to manipulate the key benchmark rate Libor.