Deutsche Bank said on Monday, 7 September, that it had settled a Frankfurt lawsuit in which former manager Dario Schiraldi sought €152 million ($176.62 million) in damages, resolving the claim for an undisclosed sum on a confidential basis. The Frankfurt Regional Court confirmed that the plaintiff had withdrawn the case, which had been scheduled for hearing from Thursday. "The parties have now resolved on a confidential basis all of the claims and allegations that Mr. Schiraldi has previously made against Deutsche Bank and its personnel," the bank said in a statement. Deutsche Bank added that the resolution would have "only a small financial impact" on its third-quarter earnings. A lawyer for Schiraldi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The settlement removes, three days before it was due to begin, a trial that had threatened to draw Germany's largest lender and its chief executive into public examination of a legacy matter. Schiraldi, formerly a senior manager in Deutsche Bank's asset and wealth management division, filed the claim in Frankfurt in 2024, alleging that the bank had damaged his reputation and earnings by wrongly attributing responsibility to him over derivative and repurchase transactions conducted with Italy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena in 2008. He was among six former employees who brought claims on that basis. The bank has stated in its annual report that it considers all such claims unfounded and would defend itself robustly, disputing what it described as inflated and unrealistic alleged losses.
ORIGINS IN THE MONTE DEI PASCHI TRANSACTIONS
The dispute traces to transactions Deutsche Bank arranged with Monte dei Paschi in 2008, which Italian prosecutors suspected were structured to conceal losses at the Siena-based lender through improper accounting treatment. A first-instance Italian court convicted managers of Monte dei Paschi, Deutsche Bank itself, and several Deutsche Bank managers involved in the transaction. All those convicted were acquitted on appeal in 2022. Schiraldi's 2019 conviction was among those overturned.
The former bankers subsequently argued that Deutsche Bank's own conduct contributed to the first-instance convictions and damaged their careers. Schiraldi alleged the bank had spread untruths about him and had acted in concert against him and colleagues in order to limit difficulties with United States regulators elsewhere, and he named current chief executive Christian Sewing, who in 2013 oversaw an internal audit of the Italian derivatives trades, as involved in that conduct. Deutsche Bank has previously described the allegations as based on incorrect claims and as an attempt to generate publicity by seeking to harm the reputation of executives. In November 2025 Schiraldi escalated the matter beyond the courts, asking the European Central Bank to conduct a supervisory review of the bank's governance.
FOUR LONDON CLAIMS REMAIN OUTSTANDING
Schiraldi is the second of the six original claimants with whom Deutsche Bank has settled. The bank reached terms in February with another former banker, Michele Foresti, who according to people familiar with the matter received between €35 million and €45 million. Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the size of the Schiraldi settlement. A spokesman said it was standard practice to assess whether a settlement that eliminates legal uncertainty and avoids potential litigation costs is in the bank's best interest, and that such assessments are made case by case. Handelsblatt reported that the bank had evidently not fully covered the litigation risk with provisions.
The chapter is not closed. Four of Schiraldi's former colleagues are pursuing a parallel claim in London seeking a combined €760 million, according to the London filing, and those proceedings have not been settled. The scale of that remaining exposure, set against a Frankfurt outcome the bank characterised as immaterial to third-quarter results, is the principal measure for investors assessing how much legacy litigation risk from the Monte dei Paschi transactions remains on Deutsche Bank's books. Confirmation of the accounting effect will come with the bank's third-quarter 2026 results.