A former Deutsche Bank trader is demanding 30 million dollars in damages from Germany's largest financial institution following his acquittal in the Libor scandal.

In a document submitted by his lawyers to a New York court, Gavin Black accuses his former employer of abuse of process and malicious prosecution. Black, who worked in money markets and derivatives for Deutsche Bank in London, was convicted in 2018 for manipulating the Libor benchmark interest rate. In 2022, however, a federal court in Manhattan overturned the conviction due to a lack of evidence - the trader was acquitted. Deutsche Bank will defend itself "intensively against these allegations", said a spokesperson. A lawyer for Black declined to comment.

In addition to Black, the bank is also being accused by another former employee in the investigation into the Libor scandal. Matthew Connolly, former head of the Pool Trading Desk at Deutsche Bank, was also initially convicted and later acquitted for lack of evidence. Connolly is demanding compensation of 150 million dollars from the bank, which had applied for the case to be dismissed in mid-January.

At least 16 financial institutions worldwide were involved in the Libor scandal. Individual traders had colluded to fix the interest rate in order to steer it in the desired direction and pocket trading profits. Hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of transactions were linked to the Libor and related reference interest rates every day, which meant that even small movements could generate profits. Many banks had already reached settlements worth billions of dollars with various authorities. Deutsche Bank paid a fine of 2.5 billion dollars in 2015.

(Report by Jonathan Stempel. Edited by Marta Orosz, edited by Olaf Brenner. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)