Ex-UBS Banker Sues for Malicious Lawsuit, Deutsche Whistleblowers Claimed Bank Hid $12bn in Losses

Bloomberg reports that Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS banker who won a record whistleblower award for telling the Internal Revenue Service how the bank helped thousands of Americans evade taxes, seeks more than $1m in damages for malicious prosecution from Olenicoff, according to a complaint filed last month in California state court in Santa Ana. UBS filed a similar complaint against Olenicoff in August.

Olenicoff, who built his fortune as the CEO of Newport Beach, California-based Olen Properties Corp., pleaded guilty in 2007 to filing a false tax return. He admitted that he failed to disclose about $200m in offshore accounts to the IRS.

In the meantime, the news organisation also reports that three former Deutsche Bank employees told U.S. regulators that the German lender covered up paper losses during the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. The company disputed the allegation.

The employees - a trader and two risk managers - told the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Frankfurt-based bank inflated the value of credit derivatives to avoid recognizing as much as $12bn in losses, the newspaper reported, citing people it didn’t identify. The portfolio had a notional value of $130bn, the FT said.

Ex-UBS Banker Sues Olenicoff for Malicious Lawsuit

Deutsche Bank Ex-Employees Reported Crisis Coverup, FT Says