WASHINGTON — A pair of Senate Democrats are asking Deutsche Bank for details on why it reportedly failed to submit suspicious activity reports on transactions related to the families of President Trump and White House adviser Jared Kushner.
In a letter to Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing, Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., called on the bank to explain a New York Times report that senior officials in the bank’s private wealth management division quashed SARs prepared by compliance staff related to the Kushner Companies, the Trump Foundation and other entities.
“Given Deutsche Bank’s record of recent serious violations of U.S. securities, banking, sanctions and anti-money laundering laws, if true this would seem to be another especially alarming failure of the bank’s risk management and internal controls,” the senators said in the letter, dated Monday.
The senators are asking Sewing to detail how many SARs were allegedly prepared and then suppressed, and what the rationale was for not filing them with regulators.
They also inquired about what role Deutsche Bank’s special investigations unit had with respect to Trump-related transactions, which leaders in the bank's private wealth management division were involved in deciding whether to file SARs, and whether the bank has undertaken an internal audit or review of the decisions.
The senators also asked whether any of the transactions involved overseas entities, including “companies involving prominent Russians."
The senators are asking Deutsche Bank to respond to their inquiry by May 30.
