Germany’s market regulator BaFin on Tuesday imposed an administrative fine of 8.66 million euros (U.S. $9.8 million) on Deutsche Bank for breaches of the European Union’s Benchmarks Regulation.
Article 16(2)(a) of the regulation requires contributors to have in place effective systems and controls. “As a supervised contributor, Deutsche Bank at times did not have in place effective preventative systems, controls, and policies to ensure the integrity and reliability of all contributions of input data to the administrator,” BaFin stated in its enforcement notice.
BaFin specifically noted weaknesses in Deutsche Bank’s Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) controls. The notice adds no further information regarding reasoning for the fine.
In a statement, Deutsche Bank said, “BaFin’s action relates to the internal control environment supporting Deutsche Bank’s Euribor submissions. However, Deutsche Bank has no indication that the fined issue led to incorrect submissions to the benchmark administrator.”
“Deutsche Bank has already implemented initial measures to improve these controls in coordination with its supervisors,” the bank’s statement continued. “It remains a top priority for us to identify and address potential weaknesses in our control processes. The bank accepts the fine as a result of a settlement with BaFin, thereby creating final legal certainty.”
In 2015, Deutsche Bank pleaded guilty to wire fraud for its role in manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and Euribor. In that settlement, the bank agreed to pay $775 million in criminal penalties to the U.S. Department of Justice, bringing the total amount of penalties against the bank from various global regulators to approximately $2.5 billion.
In April, BaFin expanded the mandate of a monitor it placed at Deutsche Bank in September 2018 and ordered the bank to “take appropriate internal safeguards and comply with general due diligence obligations” under the German Money Laundering Act (Geldwäschegesetz).
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