Germany

A fresh chapter in the long-running legal woes of Germany’s Deutsche Bank opened yesterday in Munich when joint chief executive Jürgen Fitschen appeared in court alongside his two predecessors, the Irish Times reported. Together with Josef Ackermann and Rolf Breuer, Mr Fitschen is accused of misleading a multi-billion lawsuit filed against the bank by Germany’s defunct media empire, Kirch Gruppe.

The head of Germany's Bundesbank criticised Greece's government on Tuesday for failing to implement reforms and said it was possible for a country within the currency union to become insolvent. "Member states must take responsibility for the consequences of their political decisions," Jens Weidmann, also a member of the European Central Bank's Governing Council, told an audience in Essen. "There must be a match between control and liability." "Ultimately, this requires the possibility of a state insolvency, without the financial system collapsing," he said in the text of his speech.

Germany's largest power producer RWE will explore a split of its businesses if the sector's crisis intensifies, Chief Executive Peter Terium said, keeping open the option of a drastic overhaul similar to rival E.ON. Germany's utilities have seen their profits and share prices tumble as they grapple with a restructuring of the energy sector that has promoted solar and wind generation at the expense of their gas-fired power stations. "We want our company, RWE, to remain active in all parts of the value chain," he told shareholders at the group's annual general meeting on Thursday.

Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday that it would incur 1.5 billion euros, or $1.6 billion, in costs from legal proceedings as reports surfaced that the bank was set to accept a record penalty for its involvement in a plan to rig the benchmark rates used to set trillions of dollars in interest rates, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported.

German lenders should prepare to write off at least half the value of the bonds they hold in Austrian 'bad bank' Heta Asset Resolution AG, a Bundesbank board member said in an interview published on Friday. "I think this situation has to be taken seriously by the German banks," Andreas Dombret told news agency Bloomberg in an interview in Johannesburg, where he addressed the local chamber of commerce. "It's advisable and recommendable to take provisions on this, and ... I would say it should be a minimum of a 50 percent provision for potential losses," he added.

A long-running investigation into Wall Street’s manipulation of interest rates is heading into a stark final chapter as authorities around the globe push Deutsche Bank to pay a record penalty and accept a criminal guilty plea for the unit at the center of the case, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest financial institution and one of several banks linked to the gaming of interest rates, is in talks to resolve the case as soon as this month, according to people briefed on the matter.

Nervous investors drove safe-haven German Bund yields close to record lows on Wednesday, amid concern over Greece’s ability to resolve its debt crisis, a day before it must repay a loan to the International Monetary Fund, the Irish Times reported. Although cash-strapped Greece successfully sold €1.138 billionof six-month Treasury bills on Wednesday, doubts remain over its ability to find enough funds to repay all its debts in the coming weeks. Athens must roll over another €1 billion on April 15th.

Innotech Solar has filed for insolvency, blaming its predicament on “general uncertainty within the European PV market”. The filing was made at Narvik in Norway on 24 March, the company said. German subsidiaries ITS Innotech Solar Module GmbH, ITS Halle Cell GmbH and Energiebau Solar Power GmbH, Cologne, also filed for insolvency on 25 March. The insolvency of the three German subsidiaries affects a total of 120 employees. Their wages and salaries will be secured until the end of May by the German Insolvency fund.

Steps should be taken to ensure that the euro zone currency bloc could withstand a possible insolvency of one of its members, Germany's Bundesbank said in its monthly report on Monday. "The financial and state debt crisis ... has yet to be overcome," the Bundesbank said in the report, reiterating that individual states and investors should take primary responsibility for their debts.

Market opinion is divided over the importance of proposed German legislation that would effectively force senior bondholders down the credit capital structure when a failing bank is resolved, Reuters reported. "What the lawmakers have done is effectively put in a clause that clarifies the creditor hierarchy for senior debt and sets out clearly that senior debt is below derivatives and structured notes when it comes to resolution," said one debt banker. "It gives a very practical bail-in hierarchy," the banker said.