The hedge fund manager, who has since passed away, has been imprisoned twice.
(Photo: AP)
Bangalore Deutsche Bank has agreed to a $75 million settlement in the lawsuit over deals with sex offender Jeffrey Eppstein. This was confirmed to the Handelsblatt by a person familiar with the matter.
With the latest settlement, the money house wants to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that it profited financially from the late hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring. This was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, citing lawyers for the plaintiffs.
A group of anonymous women filed the lawsuit last November, and the bank moved to have the lawsuit dismissed. An admission of guilt is not associated with the settlement, according to an insider.
Deutsche Bank did not comment. However, a spokesman pointed out that the bank admitted in 2020 that it was a serious mistake to take Epstein as a customer. “It should never have happened,” CEO Christian Sewing wrote to the bank’s employees at the time.
According to its annual report, the bank accepted Epstein as a customer in August 2013 and in December 2018 initiated “the process of terminating” this business relationship. That year, the Miami Herald published allegations that he had abused young women.
The plaintiffs accused the bank of ignoring several warning signs of Epstein’s criminal activities, including money payments to numerous young women. According to the Wall Street Journal, the settlement should compensate dozens of women.
Investors had sued the bank for sloppy controls
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to forcing a minor into prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Arrested again on sex trafficking allegations, he committed suicide in custody in August 2019, aged 66.
Deutsche Bank had already had to make several settlement payments because of its customer relationship with Epstein. In 2020, she had reached a $150 million settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), a regulator, over her client relationships with Epstein, as well as Danske Bank Estonia and FBME Bank, which have been accused of money laundering violated New York banking laws.
Because of the sloppy controls that were disclosed as part of the comparison, investors then sued the institute. The plaintiffs had accused the institute of lax supervision of ultra-rich customers because the scandals it had triggered had weighed on the share price. This comparison had cost the institute 26 million euros.
It is not yet known whether the bank had already formed provisions or contingent liabilities in view of the lawsuit now settled by the Epstein victims. The bank had so far avoided commenting on this because it would have given the plaintiffs’ lawyers a signal of how it assesses its own chances of success.
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