Deutsche Bank logo at company's headquarters towers in Frankfurt Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest lender, said on Thursday that it was revising down its 2013 earnings to reflect the recent settlement of a long-running legal dispute. Deutsche Bank said in a statement that net profit amounted to 681 million euros ($942 million) in 2013, rather than the 1.08 billion euros originally reported in January.
The reduction by 401 million euros reflected a deal to settle a long-running legal battle over the collapse of the media empire of the late Leo Kirch, as well as other write-downs, the bank explained.
For the same reasons, Deutsche Bank restated its 2013 pre-tax profit at 1.456 billion euros, instead of 2.07 billion euros.
In February, Deutsche Bank announced it would pay 775 million euros to settle all legal disputes with Kirch.
In a long and bitter legal battle dating back to 2002, Leo Kirch, who died in 2011 at the age of 84, had been suing Deutsche Bank for more than 3.0 billion euros.
Kirch claimed that former Deutsche Bank chief executive Rolf Breuer was responsible for his downfall after he openly questioned creditworthiness in a television interview.
In the wake of the deal, the bank's litigation reserves -- cash set aside to cover various lawsuits it is involved in -- declined to 1.8 billion euros, it added.
The group's plans to pay shareholders an unchanged dividend of 0.75 euros per share would be unaffected by the settlement, Deutsche Bank said.
Source: AFP