In order to resolve a federal lawsuit, Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay US$75 million to victims of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The lawsuit claimed that because Deutsche Bank handled Epstein’s money up to June 2019 and paid a US$150 million punishment to New York regulators in 2020 for compliance violations, the German bank was aware of Epstein’s network of underage females and facilitated his sex trafficking enterprise.
Similar accusations have also been leveled against US bank JP Morgan Chase.
2019 saw the suicide of renowned financier Epstein while he was awaiting his sex trafficking trial in a jail cell in New York City.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the payment and said, citing sources with knowledge of the situation, that the bank did not acknowledge guilt.
Dylan Riddle, a spokesman for Deutsche Bank, declined to comment on the settlement but pointed to a 2020 statement in which the bank acknowledged making a mistake in adding Epstein as a client.
He added that Deutsche Bank has engaged additional personnel to combat financial crime and invested more than 4 billion euros to strengthen its controls, procedures, and training.
Epstein’s abuses “could not have happened without the collaboration and support of many powerful individuals and institutions,” according to David Boies, one of the accusations’ attorneys. We value Deutsche Bank’s readiness to accept accountability for its part.
