Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s biggest bank has reportedly fired two employees for their alleged role in a spying scandal being examined by German prosecutors, two people with knowledge of the situation said.
The Frankfurt-based bank dismissed its German head of corporate security and its investor relations chief for planning the surveillance of Michael Bohndorf, a shareholder who has previously sued Deutsche Bank, said the people, who declined to be identified because the matter hasn’t been publicly disclosed.
Frankfurt prosecutors are examining whether to open a criminal probe into possible privacy violations at the bank.
An agency in Darmstadt, Germany, that handles data protection issues referred the matter to prosecutors after an investigation of the bank’s corporate security department and private detectives determined there were grounds to suspect breaches of privacy laws, regional council spokesman Gerhard Mueller said yesterday.
“Deutsche Bank obviously went too far” in its surveillance, said Wolfgang Gerke, president of the Bavarian Center of Finance in Munich. “But we need to wait for more information before making a final judgment.”
It’s positive that they took immediate action after the latest findings.” The company said on May 22nd it had uncovered possible violations in its corporate security department.
The bank, which also faces a probe by German financial regulator BaFin, hired a law firm to carry out an investigation into the matter. The initial findings of the firm, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, implicated the two employees, one of the people said.
Germany has been hit by data scandals at state-owned railroad Deutsche Bahn AG and Deutsche Telekom AG, Europe’s biggest phone company. Berlin-based Deutsche Bahn earlier this year admitted reviewing personal data relating to 173,000 workers in 2002 and 2003 as part of an anti-corruption investigation.
The data agency in Darmstadt told the bank that two cases are being examined to determine whether an “administrative offense” was committed, and the entire matter was handed over to prosecutors, Deutsche Bank spokesman Ronald Weichert said yesterday.
Bloomberg