Anshu Jain gets clean chit on charges of lying to German regulator

But other allegations against Jain, Deutsche Bank still being evaluated by the regulator

Anshu Jain, former co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank, has been given a clean chit by German financial watchdog Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) on charges of lying to regulators about an inter-bank rate rigging scandal.

Jain, who quit as co-CEO of Deutsche Bank with effect from June 30, was earlier accused of having “knowingly made inaccurate statements” to Germany’s central bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, misleading regulators on what he knew about the alleged manipulation of inter-bank rates such as the London inter-bank offered rate (Libor).

According to reports, BaFin had criticised Deutsche Bank and Jain in its report on investigations into the rate fixing scandal. Together, Bafin and Deutsche Bundesbank share the supervision of banking business in Germany.

A Financial Times report said BaFin had dropped “a key strand of its investigation” and cleared Jain of allegedly lying to the central bank about what he knew about the rate manipulation.

On its part, Deutsche Bank said, “We continue to work with our regulator to bring this inquiry to a conclusion.” In a letter to Jain earlier this month, BaFin President Felix Hufeld said the regulator was “dropping that part of its probe into Libor-rigging at Deutsche after considering that the ‘probable’ interpretation of the evidence weighed in Jain’s favour,” the report said.

“The suspicion that you knowingly made incorrect statements to a regulator seems unsubstantiated to me... This aspect will, therefore, no longer be relevant in the continued assessment by BaFin,” Hufeld wrote to Jain. He, however, added all other allegations against Jain and Deutsche Bank were still being evaluated by the regulator.

Jain, 52, had reportedly told the central bank that he had no knowledge of rumours of possible rigging in 2008.

Last month, Deutsche Bank had said Jain’s comments were taken out of context. “Jain disputes as baseless the allegation that he misled the Bundesbank in his 2012 interview…He understood Bundesbank’s question about when he first learnt of rumours of possible Libor rigging to mean rigging at Deutsche Bank itself, which he learnt of in 2011, not rigging in the marketplace, which was publicly reported on in 2008,” the bank said in a statement on June 27.

Earlier this year, the bank paid $2.5 billion to settle probes in the US and the UK into alleged manipulation of Libor and Euribor benchmark rates by its traders.

Jain had joined Deutsche Bank more than 20 years ago. He served as co-CEO for three years.