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BCN-16
GERMANY-ECONOMY-BANKING
Deutsche Bank shares slide on new legal case
FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Jan 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Shares in Germany’s biggest
lender Deutsche Bank slid Tuesday, as the institution dismissed claims for 11
billion euros ($12.5 billion) from the plaintiff in a new legal case.
By 1:10 pm (1210 GMT), stock in the financial firm was down 3.1 percent at
7.73 euros in Frankfurt, against a DAX index of blue-chip shares down 0.5
percent.
Shares in Deutsche lost more than half their value over 2018, but are on a
positive trend so far in the new year.
The latest round of rumours that wedding bells could be in the offing with
rival Commerzbank have helped push Deutsche’s stock price up 11 percent since
January 1.
It now faces a case in a Frankfurt regional court claiming 11 billion euros
from Stuttgart-based former oriental rug trader Hafez Sabet.
Several German courts have already thrown out his case, which demands
compensation from Deutsche Bank for allegedly causing his bankruptcy in 2004
by holding too much of his property as collateral for loans.
Sabet claims one of his companies was close to completing development on a
new kind of motor that could have been commercialised if he had not gone
bankrupt.
The case is “completely unfounded and the amount of damages suggested is
absurd,” Deutsche Bank spokesman Tim Oliver Ambrosius told AFP.
He accused Sabet and his lawyers of trying to “grab attention” by “linking
a putative claim for billions of euros to our name.”
Deutsche has in recent years paid out billions of dollars in fines and
compensation, especially in the United States, over the activities of its
investment banking arm.
BSS/AFP/SR/1745 HRS