Deutsche Bank may be investigated over spying

Deutsche Bank AG fired two executives and may face a criminal investigation over allegations that the company spied on a supervisory board member and a shareholder among others, officials said today.

The bank, Germany’s biggest, said in May that it had ordered an independent investigation after learning of “possible violations” of internal procedures or legal requirements involving the bank’s corporate security department.

A person familiar with the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the results have not yet been released, said Tuesday that the bank’s head of German corporate security and its head of investor relations had been dismissed.

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times identified the two men as Rafael Schenz and and Wolfram Schmitt.

Doris Moeller-Scheu, a spokeswoman for Frankfurt prosecutors, said her office was examining the matter and considering whether to launch a formal criminal investigation. She said any decision would take some time.

Deutsche Bank spokesman Ronald Weichert said it would release information on the case only after a report from the investigation commissioned by the bank has been compiled and presented.

A former representative of the ver.di service workers’ union on Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board, Gerald Hermann, was quoted by German media earlier this month as saying that he had been a target of surveillance by the bank. German weekly Der Spiegel has reported that a critical shareholder also was snooped on, among others.

Data protection scandals have made waves at several other German companies in recent years.

Last year, German prosecutors launched an investigation into allegations that Deutsche Telekom AG monitored managers’ call records to track possible leaks of information to media.

In March, the chief executive of national railway operator Deutsche Bahn AG, Hartmut Mehdorn, resigned after coming under fire in a scandal over intercepted e-mails and checks on employee data.

Germans are sensitive about data protection and, although Mehdorn argued that no offense was committed, his political support evaporated.

Shares of Deutsche Bank were up 1.1 percent to euro49.65 ($70.59) in Frankfurt trading.