{"id":48498,"date":"2015-05-27T08:20:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T12:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=48498"},"modified":"2015-05-27T09:23:37","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T13:23:37","slug":"risk-gap-deutsche-bank-to-pay-55-million-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/05\/2015\/risk-gap-deutsche-bank-to-pay-55-million-penalty.html","title":{"rendered":"$1.5 To $3.3 Billion Risk Gap: Deutsche Bank To Pay $55 Million Penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"http:\/\/www.dreamstime.com\/royalty-free-stock-image-financial-crisis-headlines-image7003996\"<\/a>New York (HedgeCo.net) \u2013 \u00a0The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday charged Deutsche Bank AG with filing misstated financial reports during the height of the financial crisis that failed to take into account a material risk for potential losses estimated to be in the billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the height of the financial crisis, Deutsche Bank\u2019s financial statements did not reflect the significant risk in these large, complex illiquid positions,\u201d said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC\u2019s Division of Enforcement.\u00a0 \u201cDeutsche Bank failed to make reasonable judgments when valuing its positions and lacked robust internal controls over financial reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deutsche Bank neither\u00a0admits nor denies the SEC\u2019s findings, but agreed to pay a $55 million penalty to settle the charges.\u00a0 According to internal calculations not for the purpose of financial reporting, Deutsche Bank estimated that it was exposed to a gap risk ranging from $1.5 billion to $3.3 billion during that time period.<\/p>\n

An SEC investigation found that Deutsche Bank overvalued a portfolio of derivatives consisting of \u201cLeveraged Super Senior\u201d (LSS) trades through which the bank purchased protection against credit default losses.\u00a0 Because the trades were leveraged, the collateral posted for these positions by the sellers was only a fraction (approximately 9 percent) of the $98 billion total in purchased protection.\u00a0 This leverage created a \u201cgap risk\u201d that the market value of Deutsche Bank\u2019s protection could at some point exceed the available collateral, and the sellers could decide to unwind the trade rather than post additional collateral in that scenario.\u00a0 Therefore, Deutsche Bank was protected only up to the collateral level and not for the full market value of its credit protection.\u00a0 Deutsche Bank initially took the gap risk into account in its financial statements by adjusting down the value of the LSS positions.<\/p>\n

According to the SEC\u2019s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding, when the credit markets started to deteriorate in 2008, Deutsche Bank steadily altered its methodologies for measuring the gap risk. Each change in methodology reduced the value assigned to the gap risk until Deutsche Bank eventually stopped adjusting for gap risk altogether.\u00a0 For financial reporting purposes, Deutsche Bank essentially measured its gap risk at $0 and improperly valued its LSS positions as though the market value of its protection was fully collateralized.<\/p>\n

Editing by Alex Akesson
\nFor\u00a0HedgeCo.net<\/a>
\nalex@hedgeco.net<\/a>
\nHedgeCo.Net<\/a>\u00a0is a premier\u00a0hedge fund database<\/a>\u00a0and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership in\u00a0HedgeCo.net<\/a>\u00a0is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for\u00a0Hedge Funds<\/a>!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York (HedgeCo.net) \u2013 \u00a0The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday charged Deutsche Bank AG with filing misstated financial reports during the height of the financial crisis that failed to take into account a material risk for potential losses estimated to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48498"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48518,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48498\/revisions\/48518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}