Deutsche Bank has responded to claims by former trader Matthew Connolly who seeks over $150 million in compensation from his ex-employer for what he calls “the destruction of his life”.

Connolly blames Deutsche Bank for the fact that he was investigated, indicted, and convicted as part of a multi-year, industry-wide government inquiry into interest-rate manipulation that encompassed numerous financial institutions and resulted in the prosecution of more than twenty individuals.

In April 2022, Judge Colleen McMahon signed judgments of acquittal as to Mr Connolly and Gavin Campbell Black in a lawsuit accusing them of LIBOR rigging. This happened after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals had reversed the judgment of conviction in the matter, and remanded the case to the district court for entry of a judgment of acquittal.

Now, Connolly wants Deutsche Bank to pay for the damage caused. Deutsche Bank disagrees.

The defendant filed a motion to dismiss with the New York Southern District Court on January 13, 2023.

In the document, seen by FX News Group, Deutsche Bank argues that, to the extent anyone is to blame for Mr. Connolly’s situation, it is not Deutsche Bank.

Deutsche Bank says that the Plaintiff’s attempt to allege that he was “maliciously prosecuted” by his former employer—which requires that he allege that Deutsche Bank initiated the prosecution, a lack of probable cause for the prosecution, that Deutsche Bank was motivated by actual malice, and that the prosecution terminated in the Plaintiff’s favor—is deficient as a matter of law and should be dismissed with prejudice.

The defendant notes that the Complaint must adequately allege that Deutsche Bank “initiated” the prosecution against the plaintiff. To allege that a private entity “initiated” the prosecution, the Complaint must allege that Deutsche Bank overtook the prosecutor’s volition in bringing the prosecution. Deutsche Bank says that all that the Complaint alleges is that Deutsche Bank cooperated with investigators and received leniency for its cooperation. But as district courts have held time and again, that is not enough.

Further, Deutsche notes that, to bring a claim for malicious prosecution, the plaintiff must allege that Deutsche Bank lacked probable cause to bring the prosecution. But the facts alleged are to the contrary: The Plaintiff admits that he engaged in conduct that was considered by both the government and the district court at the time to be criminal. That an appellate decision later determined that the underlying conduct was actually lawful does not undermine the reasonableness of concluding the Plaintiff had committed a crime at the time of the purported malicious prosecution.

Also, Deutsche Bank says that ut is entitled to at least two legal presumptions that it had probable cause to believe the Plaintiff was committing a crime—the first by virtue of the Plaintiff’s indictment by the grand jury, and the second by the Plaintiff’s criminal conviction by the jury—neither of which the Complaint rebuts as it must to advance this case past the pleading stage.

Finally,Deutsche Bank argues that the Complaint does not allege that Deutsche Bank acted with the malice required for a malicious prosecution claim. The Complaint alleges that Deutsche Bank cooperated with the government’s investigation in the hopes that it would be treated more leniently. But a potential co-defendant’s mere cooperation with law enforcement and prosecutors is not the sort of intent to harm necessary to allege malice. If it were, every co-defendant considering cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of securing more lenient treatment would need to weigh the risk of civil liability to their co-defendant in deciding whether to come forward and tell the truth—something the courts have carefully sought to avoid for decades.

Deutsche Bank concludes that the Court should dismiss the Complaint with prejudice.