German bank’s moral vacuum

Deutsche Bank is paying a heavy price for shilly-shallying and its obfuscation over the fixing of Libor interest rates in Frankfurt, New York, London and tokyo.

It has been pummelled by the biggest fine so far in a scandal that first surfaced at Barclays in June 2012, and suffered another setback in its effort to be the only serious european investment bank post the crisis.

Whereas Barclays, to its credit, co- operated with the authorities and settled with them first, Deutsche is among the last to ’fess up.

Worse, it attempted a cover-up, misleading the authorities and withholding vital documents in what amounts to a conspiracy.

small wonder then that the authorities are demanding the heads of at least seven employees, including a managing director, four directors and a vice-president, all based in London.

Across the group some 29 people were involved and at least two face criminal charges in London.

the most worrying thing about the charges that were brought against Germany’s leading bank is that, in the words of the Financial conduct Authority, the culture of generating profits at the expense of the integrity of the markets was ‘deeply ingrained’.

Barclays may have gained in monetary terms for being the first bank to settle the Libor charges against it, but its reputation suffered grievously. Its chairman Marcus Agius resigned and senior directors were summoned to the Bank of england and all but instructed by then governor Mervyn King to sack the irrepressible Bob Diamond.

three years on, Barclays is still struggling with the fall- out as it shrinks its investment banking side and its latest chairman John McFarlane has acknowledged that despite all the guff about values, conduct issues ‘still haunt us’.

the bad behaviour and high costs of putting things right are not yet over. All this begs the question of whether Deutsche has done enough to clean the stables.

A statement from the joint chief executives of deep regret hardly passes muster as taking the rap and it falls well short of the kind of public apology which all stakeholders in the German bank, including potentially swindled customers, deserve.

the idea that one of these bosses, Anshu Jain, who was there when much of the wrongdoing went on, can hang on to his over-remunerated job looks preposterous. the German authorities should give him the Bob Diamond treatment.

the fines and the criminal prosecutions, coming so long after the event, may look like a case of shutting the door long after the horse has bolted.

there is no doubt wrongdoing is still going on and has probably moved from the now tightly regu- lated authorised banking sector to hedge funds, shadow banking organisations and the like.

that is no excuse for cosy backdoor deals with bank sinners. until the public has seen justice being done, in the shape of the bankers and traders carted off to face trials and retribution, the appalling transgressions of the banking sector will remain an open wound.

Not only should the bankers face long jail sentences, but the illgotten assets should be reclaimed by the state as would be the case were they common or garden criminals. the bankers are every bit as culpable of stealing from us all as the much more intriguing hatton Garden gang.

Wrong box

INVESTORS in the set-top box innovator Pace will be rubbing their hands at a bid from American rival Arris, valuing the Yorkshire firm at £1.4bn. Allegedly, the main reason for doing the deal is to lower the us company’s tax bill from 28pc to 26pc.

that does not seem much of a saving for a huge amount of regulatory scrutiny and trouble.

so the suspicion must be that there are deeper reasons for the deal. the most obvious is monopoly pricing power, with the combined company providing 80pc of set-top boxes to the huge and everexpanding American market.

so if there were ever a case for an anti-trust investigation it would be this one.

too often when it comes to fastchanging technologies, the once-ferocious us authorities look to have abandoned the trust-busting spirit which was engendered by teddy Roosevelt at the start of the 20th century.

the risk to Britain of this deal, as with so many in recent times, is the loss of vital tech know-how in a growth industry.

On its website, Pace boasts: ‘We have set the bar for technological innovation, achieving an unrivalled array of industry firsts.’

Not if this deeply flawed deal goes ahead.

Cash cow

BRITAIN is finally getting city regulation for free. After the Deutsche Bank penalty the Financial conduct Authority has collected £411.9m in fines against a budget of £400m.

easy-peasy.