Kirch wins Deutsche Bank damages ruling

10 December 2003

MUNICH – German media mogul Leo Kirch won a key court verdict Wednesday paving the way for him to seek heavy damages against Deutsche Bank, with the court ruling that the bank violated its banking secrecy obligations ahead of the collapse of a Kirch company.

The Bavarian State Superior Court threw out a personal damage claim against former Deutsche Bank chairman Rolf Breuer, but did uphold a lower court ruling on the banking secrecy violation.

In the appeals case sought by Deutsche Bank challenging the lower court ruling, the court said that Breuer was not personally obliged to uphold banking secrecy codes. But Deutsche Bank, as a creditor to the media company KirchGruppe, was obliged to banking secrecy.

With the verdict, Kirch’s lawyers can now open new legal proceedings to seek compensation from Deutsche Bank.

One lawyer, Peter Gauweiler, said the claim could go as high as EUR one billion.

The case goes back to comments which Breuer made in media interviews in early 2002 raising questions about the creditworthiness of the KirchGruppe.

Those remarks were regarded as ill-timed, coming as they did at a moment when heavily-indebted KirchGruppe was fighting for survival.

Leo Kirch argued that Breuer was responsible for KirchGruppe being unable to round up any further credit backing from German banks, hastening the KirchGruppe’s road to insolvency last year.

Deutsche Bank lawyers declined to comment on the Munich court ruling.

DPA
Subject: German news