ADVERTISEMENT

Banking Ethics Adviser Says Deutsche Bank Pressure Cost His Job

Banking Ethics Adviser Says Deutsche Bank Pressure Cost His Job

(Bloomberg) -- An adviser at the FICC Markets Standards Board said he was placed under “intolerable” pressure by his bosses and then fired to stop him working as an expert witness in a $1 billion civil case against Deutsche Bank AG.

Craig Beevers sued the non-profit and claimed he was dismissed for whistle blowing against Deutsche Bank, and accused the lender of trying to intimidate him through his bosses. The FMSB was set up in response to unsavory conduct discovered in fixed income, currencies and commodities markets after the financial crisis.

Beevers said that executives including chairman Mark Yallop, who sits on the financial market infrastructure board at the Bank of England, were aware of his work as an expert witness in cases covering Libor and a so-called “last look” lawsuit that has been settled. The bank, a member of the FMSB, isn’t involved in the litigation. Yallop said he wasn’t involved in the disciplinary process.

Beevers said he was “placed under undue pressure which was intolerable” by executives at the FMSB and that there was a “clear intention to force” him to quit the Deutsche Bank litigation or he’d be dismissed, according to his claim filed at a London tribunal and made public for a hearing Tuesday.

The FMSB said Beevers never told them he worked as an expert witness in addition to his responsibilities as a senior technical adviser and that it was a clear conflict of interest. He is not a “genuine whistle blower,” the body’s lawyers said in court documents.

The organization began an internal investigation when it said it became aware of Beevers’ expert witness work and concluded he was in gross breach of his contract.

“It was clear to me that the claimant’s actions lacked integrity and sound judgment,” Stephen O’Connor said in his witness statement to the tribunal. O'Connor is the non-executive director who carried out the internal probe.

In the separate U.S lawsuit, Deutsche Bank was sued over allegations that it misused its right to cancel certain trades under a rule known as “last look” and that it did that for its own commercial gain, Beevers said in his statement.

Deutsche Bank said it wasn’t part of the court case.

“We reject any suggestion that we acted improperly in any regard in relation to this matter,” the lender said in an statement. “The FMSB is an independent organization that exercised its own decision making.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy Hodges in London at jhodges17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser, Marion Dakers

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.