(MENAFN- Gulf Times) German banking regulator Bafin cleared former Deutsche Bank co-chief executive officer Anshu Jain of misleading the Bundesbank about his knowledge of the company's role in attempts to manipulate benchmark interest rates.
"The suspicion that you made knowingly incorrect statements to a regulator seems unsubstantiated to me," Felix Hufeld, the president of Bonn-based Bafin, wrote in a letter to Jain seen by Bloomberg. "This aspect will therefore no longer be relevant in the continued assessment by Bafin."
Regulators in the US and UK fined Deutsche Bank a record $2.5bn in April for its role in an interest-rate rigging scandal that shook confidence in the global banking industry. A letter Bafin sent to the bank in May faulted senior executives for creating an environment it said was "favourable" to incorrect rate submissions.
"We continue to work with our regulator to bring this inquiry to a conclusion," Michael Golden, a spokesman for Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, said in an e-mailed response to questions from Bloomberg. A spokesman for Jain declined to comment on the letter. Dominika Kula, a Bafin spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Deutsche Bank said earlier this month that Jain disputed the allegation that he misled the Bundesbank in a 2012 interview. According to the bank, he understood the question about when he first learned of possible rate rigging "to mean rigging at Deutsche Bank itself which he learned of in 2011, not rigging in the marketplace which was publicly reported on in 2008."
Jain's answer three months after the Bundesbank interview to a similar question from auditors carrying out a probe for Bafin supported the credibility of that interpretation, Hufeld wrote in the letter, which was dated July 15.
All other aspects mentioned in the letter Bafin sent to Deutsche Bank in May "are currently being evaluated from a supervisory point of view in consideration of the responses received," Hufeld wrote. The Financial Times reported the letter earlier.
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