One of the two new co-chief executives of Deutsche Bank is facing uncomfortable questions over his role in the Libor interest-rate rigging scandal, according to a newspaper report on Friday.
Prior to his appointment as co-head of Germany’s biggest lender in June, Anshu Jain headed Deutsche Bank’s investment banking operations in London where one of its traders was allegedly involved in the rigging of the Libor interbank rate which underpins rates on a wide range of lending from mortgages to credit cards.
And while it was Jain himself who ordered an internal probe into the affair as far back as 2010, the investigation “was not initially pursued with particular intensity,” the business daily Handelsblatt reported, quoting a source on Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board.
Furthermore, the affair was one of the reasons why Jain’s predecessor Josef Ackermann did not want the 49-year-old investment banker to replace him, the newspaper said.
“The interest-rate scandal hung like Damocles’ sword over Jain,” an insider told Handelsblatt.
On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that a Deutsche Bank trader had been formally named as a suspect in the Libor probe.
While the bank declined to comment on the report, it did tell AFP that the trader concerned no longer worked for the bank.
British bank Barclays has already been fined £290 million (360 million euros, $450 million) as part of a probe into the scandal by British and US authorities.
