The South Korean brokerage division of Deutsche Bank and four of its employees have been charged with destabilizing the country"s stock market, in November 2010, according to Bloomberg, quoted by Mediafax. The Commission for Financial Services of South Korea has announced in February that five employees of the German bank conspired to manipulate the market, and on November 11 caused the market capitalization of the Kospi index to fall by 27 billion dollars, in the last 10 minutes of trading.
Starting with April 1st, Deutsche Bank ha been banned for trading for its own account in stocks and derivatives for six months, this being the harshest penalty ever levied on a brokerage company in this country.
It"s regrettable that the Seoul Central District Prosecutors" Office has decided to charge its local Korean brokerage unit, Deutsche Securities Korea," the bank said in the statement. "DSK denies the charges, which will be defended. DSK did not authorize or condone any breach of market regulation.", in which it also denied the charges.
Deutsche Bank said that the bank"s operations in South Korea are not affected. The bank declined to disclose the identity of the employees that were indicted, who are either suspended or on administrative leave and aren"t now involved in bank activities.
Deutsche Securities Korea denies the allegations of market manipulation.