Deutsche Bank fired one of the top’s traders

In an exclusive article of Reuters, the journalists found out that Deutsche Bank fired one of their top’s traders, the high experience figure, Alex Bernand. After an investigation that started in 2009, at one New York colleagues’ request, the London expert from Deutsche Bank was dismissed. The reason for this gesture is the “substantial trading anomalies” managed by Bernard, representing Deutsche. The firing was made very quietly, without any additional waves. In the Bernard’s accounts there was some strange trading, according to the Reuters investigation. The facts were out in the open in this moment because the proofs are a part of the Sarbanes-Oxley action that was headed against Deutsche Bank a year ago by the colleague in New York.

In the documentation, there are proofs about an investigation made by Securities and Exchange Commission in witch is an evaluation of the Bernard personal assets. The spokesman of Deutsche Bank, Renee Calabro, didn’t make any comment on the firing matter but she said that indeed there was an investigation regarding some improperly valuated derivates of the bank. None of those facts, the investigation and the firing processes, were out in the open, but Deutsche Bank chose to have a different and powerful landing with the derivates trading in which Bernard was involved. More, at the beginning of this month, the biggest German bank announced that the plan of the credit correlation portfolio is in an advanced situation. Alex Bernand, who lives in France now, didn’t make either any comment on this matter.

In 2006, the hiring of Alex Bernard was announced with pride and optimism. Such an incident is embarrassing for the German Bank that presented him, at that time, as a high experienced person, with 12 years in the credit domain and lots of achievements. He came from Bank of America where he had a six years experience and he developed with success the global structured credit business. According to the report that the Reuters journalists found, the portfolio that Bernard was handling had the name of “exotic books” because of the high importance of the derivates. Deutsche Bank AG is the biggest private bank from Germany and one of the most important financial institutions worldwide. It has the central quarter in Frankfurt. It was funded in 1870 and opened its first branch in London, three years later. At the end of 2008, the company had more than 80.000 employees in 72 countries.

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