The lawsuit brought by derivatives trader Matthew Connolly against his former employer Deutsche Bank continues in the Southern District Court of New York.
The trader is seeking hefty damages from his former employer for what he calls “the destruction of his life”.
In this action, Connolly asserts a claim against his former employer Deutsche Bank for malicious prosecution of a criminal case brought against him for allegedly manipulating Deutsche Bank’s LIBOR submissions.
Connolly alleges that Deutsche Bank led the prosecution against him by providing the government with false and misleading information (and omissions) both during the investigation—which the government effectively outsourced to Deutsche Bank—and during the trial. . Connolly claims Deutsche Bank maliciously prosecuted him to distract the government from its top executives. The Second Circuit cleared Connolly of any wrongdoing.
Deutsche Bank argues that plaintiff’s claim is without merit because, among other reasons, (1) the US government, not the defendant, prosecuted the plaintiff, (2) there was no lack of probable cause to believe that the plaintiff committed a crime against at the time of his prosecution and conviction (the Second Circuit subsequently reversed the conviction based on its interpretation of the statute), and (3) in any event, Deutsche Bank did not act with malice.
Court filings dated Nov. 30, 2023, indicate that the parties are seeking an extended discovery schedule, as the allegations in them cover at least a seven-year period from 2005 to 2012, relate to a sprawling, multi-national government investigation that included a review of “158 million electronic documents. . . 850,000 audio files. . . almost 200 interviews. . . and . . . hundreds of communications with the government,” include material that, in many cases, is more than a decade old and could involve information covered by attorney-client privilege, data protection laws, among other things. All of this could make discovery more complicated and time-consuming.
While it remains Deutsche Bank’s position that targeted and focused discovery is the most effective and efficient here, Deutsche Bank expects that identifying, gathering and producing potentially relevant information may require additional time.