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A former senior banker at Deutsche Bank is suing his former employer for 152 million euros in damages for alleged harm caused in his career in a criminal case related to the accounting scandal at Bank of Italy’s Monte dei Pasi di Siena.
Dario Silardi, a former German institutional client, demands “an alleged harm caused by Italian criminal proceedings and first case conviction” from a German lender in a civil suit filed in the Frankfurt District Court.
The lawsuit was filed last year but came to light on Thursday when the annual report revealed the existence of a 152 million euro claim against the bank.
The German lender did not name Silardi in the report, but on Friday the Frankfurt court confirmed that he had been sued from him and had not yet set a date for the hearing. Italian newspaper Milan Finanza first reported the identity of the petitioner.
Schiraldi’s lawsuit is the latest twist in a long-term accounting scandal that was Italy’s third largest lender at the time.
In 2008, Monte Dei Paschi di Siena entered into a complex derivative trade with Deutsche and others. Italian criminal prosecutors later accused the deal that it was designed to hide losses from investors and that Germany and its employees of supporting and relying on false accounting and market manipulation.
Sirardi and five other bankers, who were employed in Germany at the time of the transaction, were convicted by a Milanese court in November 2019 and sentenced to prison, but there was no time for the conviction to be overturned on appeal.
However, while the lengthy legal process took years to run the course, it was not until last year that Italian financial regulators retracted the final appeals related to the case.
Siraldi, now based in Dubai, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Frankfurt Court spokesman told the Financial Times that the deadline for Germany to file a written statement with the court will soon expire, so the hearing is likely to be scheduled soon, but declined to comment on the detailed nature of Schiraldi’s claim.
Similar to the claim from Sirardi, Germany revealed on Thursday that it was threatened in a similar lawsuit by five other former employees in English courts, but no other claims have been filed.
Michele Faisola, a former German executive, declined to comment, despite being one of the bankers whose appeal convictions were overturned by an Italian court.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
In its annual report, Germany said “all such claims are completely merit-free and describes Sirardi’s alleged losses as “inflated and unrealistic.” This is because in order to do so, they will “seriously prejudice” the outcome of the problem.
