Deutsche Bank has made a special announcement extending the agenda for the general meeting of the shareholders, scheduled to take place on May 23, 2019. The new items consist of resolutions, proposed by a shareholder, to remove supervisory board member Paul Achleitner, and to vote no confidence in management board members Silvie Matherat, Stuart Lewis, and Garth Ritchie. The reasons given by the shareholder for the removal of Dr. Achleitner and the withdrawal of confidence in the management board members include:
- money laundering problems at the bank, with US, UK and German regulators having delegated anti-money laundering monitors for the bank due to inadequate know-your-customer reviews, the transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars to Danske Bank’s Estonia branch despite clear indications of irregularities, and searches of Deutsche Bank premises by the German public prosecutor’s office because of suspected money laundering at the bank’s British Virgin Islands subsidiary;
- failure to satisfy the requirements of a fine imposed by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) for the deficient prevention of money laundering, continuing deficiencies in know-your-customer compliance;
- failure to adequately supervise subordinates in charge of money laundering prevention;
- failure to prevent, detect or stop money laundering in Baltic banks for which Deutsche Bank served as correspondent bank;
- failure to remediate severe deficiencies in the bank’s risk management systems, leading US regulators to classify it as a troubled bank in 2017, and allowing the mistaken transfer of billions of dollars; and
- poor trading decisions, and inexplicable and economically unsound personnel decisions.
The proposed resolutions also include the appointment of a special representative to assess potential damages against current members of the management and supervisory boards. In a statement published alongside the extended agenda items, the Supervisory Board expressed its opposition to, and recommendation to vote against, the proposed resolutions.