For the last three years I have been writing about the role Deutsche Bank played in the US subprime mortgage market and how the bank has forced tens of thousands of American homeowners and now even renters from their dwellings. The German press, it seemed, was not interested in the story, or else perhaps they were intimidated by the power of the bank – both politically and financially, in terms of advertising spend. Now, finally, Der Spiegel has a major article on the subject: How the United States Became a PR Disaster for Deutsche Bank (Artikel auf Deutsch):
Deutsche Bank's tracks lead through the entire American real estate
market. In Chicago, the bank foreclosed upon close to 600 large
apartment buildings in 2009, more than any other bank in the city. In
Cleveland, almost 5,000 houses foreclosed upon by Deutsche Bank were
reported to authorities between 2002 and 2006. In many US cities, the
complaints are beginning to pile up from homeowners who lost their
properties as a result of a foreclosure action filed by Deutsche Bank.
The German bank is berated on the Internet as "America's Foreclosure
King."
Gee, I wonder where "on the Internet" the Spiegel reporters could have learned about that?
Actually, Der Spiegel does have some original reporting in the piece concerning one of the first DB CDO deals called "Barramundi" which imploded. But the title of the article is misleading: Deutsche Bank's problems in the US are much more than a simple PR issue. The article points out that the bank faces enormous legal liability for its activities in the US:
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is now investigating
Deutsche Bank and a few other investment banks that constructed similar
CDOs. The financial regulator is looking into whether investors in
these obscure products were deceived. The SEC has been particularly
critical of US investment bank Goldman Sachs, which is apparently
willing to pay a record fine of $1 billion to avoid criminal
prosecution.
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Just don’t play the nationalism card too often. The label is “Deutsche” bank, but it really is a multinational conglomerate like the others. Tied up through thousands of connections and largely removed from an independent jurisdiction like all the others.