Court acquits Deutsche Bank chief

DUSSELDORF: In a legal reprieve for Germany’s most prominent banker, a court here declared that it had no grounds to convict Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank, on criminal charges of handing out rich bonuses.
The bonuses were paid to managers of telecom company Mannesmann amid a takeover battle with the Vodafone Group of Britain in 2000.
They were “illegal under stock corporation law because the payments were not in the interest of the company,’’ said the chief judge, “but they were not a breach of trust.�
The decision is preliminary and does not amount to a dismissal of the charges.Prosecutors said they would press on with more witnesses in the hope of changing the minds of the five judges.
But some defendants, their lawyers and even a court spokesman said a conviction now was highly unlikely.
Without a conviction, which carries a prison sentence as long as 10 years, Ackermann’s position at the helm of Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest, seems secure after a long period of uncertainty.
As the most prominent defendant in this closely watched case — as well as one of the highest-paid executives in Germany - Ackermann has become an emblem to many of American-style corporate excess. (NYT News Service)