Ackermann's image is on the line in Mannesmann retrial

Deutsche Bank boss Josef Ackermann returned to court yesterday to face retrial on charges of approving illegal bonuses to seal Vodafone's takeover of Germany's Mannesmann six years ago.

Mr Ackermann was head of the supervisory board that approved a €180 billion takeover offer from the British company in 2000 as well as manager bonuses worth €57 million.

But what began as a trial about a hostile takeover of a major German company - a shock in the German business world at the time - has now become a six-year legal saga that has put corporate greed on trial.

At the start of the original trial, Mr Ackermann flashed a now legendary V-for-victory sign and became the poster boy for this perceived corporate greed - even though he did not receive a Mannesmann bonus.

In the eyes of the German media, the Swiss-born manager did not help matters by remarking during the last trial that Germany was "the only country where people who successfully create value have to go to court".

Mr Ackermann is unlikely to try repeating those arguments this time around when he testifies on November 2nd. He slipped into the Düsseldorf courtroom by a side entrance yesterday, aware that a conviction would end his career at Germany's largest bank.

He said little except to confirm his name and his annual salary, which he estimated at "between €15 million and €20 million".

His lawyers will repeat their original argument that the Mannesmann bonuses were justified because the board and managers substantially increased Vodafone's offer for the company during the takeover battle.

The original trial ended with Mr Ackermann and the rest of the Mannesmann board being acquitted of breaching fiduciary duty and shareholder trust.

But that verdict was thrown out by an appeal court judge who, in a scathing ruling, called the bonuses a "waste of money" and attacked the managers for thinking they were "above the law".

The appeal court judge ruled that the payments fulfilled the "objective" criteria of a breach of fiduciary duty because the board had acted like "the lords of the manor rather than managers of the manor".

Prosecutors will argue this point in the retrial - that, in approving the €57 million bonuses, Mr Ackermann and the rest of the board acted in their own interests and not in the interest of Mannesmann shareholders.

The huge public interest in the trial reflects seething anger in Germany, as the Anglo-American management culture makes inroads into the consensus social model of the postwar years that obliged German managers to show moral responsibility for their workers.

For many, Mr Ackermann is a perfect example of that creeping change. He has shaken up Deutsche Bank and quadrupled profits, but he was attacked in the media for announcing those record profits on the same day as record job cuts.

Speculation about his possible successor at Deutsche Bank has already begun, with one frontrunner likely to be Anshu Jain, co-head of its London-based investment operations.

The retrial comes as executive pay is back on the agenda. Earlier this month it emerged that the board of Siemens had awarded themselves a 30 per cent pay increase as 3,000 employees of its former mobile phone subsidiary faced redundancy a year after the division was sold to the Taiwanese company BenQ.

Finance minister Peer Steinbrück told foreign correspondents in Berlin last week that, in his opinion, "something's clearly gotten out of control in Germany".

"We no longer have figures like in the 1950s and 1960s who were very aware of their role model function," he said.

The Mannesmann retrial is expected to last until next March.