Deutsche co-CEO Fitschen on trial over Kirch case

[April 28, 2015]  By Thomas Atkins

MUNICH (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank co-chief executive Juergen Fitschen went on trial on Tuesday accused of giving misleading evidence in connection with the collapse of the Kirch media empire in a case that could prove a major distraction for a bank pursuing a strategic revamp.

In one of the highest-profile corporate trials in Germany, Fitschen has vowed to fight allegations he gave misleading testimony in a civil suit brought by heirs of the late media magnate Leo Kirch. The case is scheduled to run at least to September.

The trial opens the day after Fitschen and co-chief executive Anshu Jain unveiled one of the biggest restructuring plans in Deutsche Bank's history and less than a week after the bank pled guilty to rigging interest rates and agreed to pay a $2.5 billion fine to U.S. and UK regulators.

The prosecutor alleges that Fitschen, 66, testified in the civil suit in a way to avoid discrediting fellow bankers so that the case against Deutsche Bank would be dismissed, according to a prosecutor's media statement released in September 2014.

Deutsche Bank settled the civil suit in February 2014 in a deal that cost the bank about 925 million euros ($1 billion) and ended 12 years of legal wrangling.

“I don’t know why I’m being charged,” Fitschen said on Monday as the bank unveiled its Strategy 2020.

“I neither lied nor deceived,” he said earlier.

Fitschen is not only the co-CEO of Germany’s flagship bank but the head of Germany’s national banking lobby BdB, a high-profile position that puts him in close contact with regulators and policymakers.

He has rejected an offer from the prosecutor to settle the case out of court with a fine, sources close to the matter said.

The trial will see Fitschen joined on the defendants' bench by former Deutsche CEOs Josef Ackermann and Rolf Breuer and two former management board members, Clemens Boersig and Tessen von Heydebreck.

Fitschen and Anshu Jain took over as co-CEOs in 2012 and their tenure has been marked by weak returns and a share price that has trailed rivals. The bank has been dogged by legal woes, including investigations into possible manipulation of benchmark currency rates and dealings with Iran, as the duo work to trim down the group’s universal business model.

Kirch, who died in 2011, blamed the country's largest lender for his group's demise, setting off one of Germany's most acrimonious corporate disputes.

Deutsche Bank on Tuesday said it was its policy not to comment on ongoing litigation and repeated an earlier stance that it is "convinced that any suspicion against Juergen Fitschen will be shown to be unfounded."

"The presumption of innocence applies to all former and current management board members,” the bank has said previously.

(Reporting by Thomas Atkins and Joern Poltz. Editing by Carmel Crimmins)

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