By Tom Sims
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank has made a settlement offer to shareholders suing Germany’s largest lender over unpaid fees for its acquisition of Postbank, the plaintiffs’ lawyer said on Friday.
Lawyer Jan Bayer (OTC:) dismissed the bank’s offer as “crazy” and “dead from the moment it arrived.”
Deutsche Bank said it would not comment on the talks.
“As we have stated in the past, we are in settlement discussions with various groups of plaintiffs in the Postbank acquisition proceedings,” Deutsche Bank said in a statement.
A key element of the settlement is an offer to pay €36.50 per Postbank share.
Any settlement would represent a major development in the years-long litigation that has dogged Deutsche and recently forced it to set aside 1.3 billion euros ($1.43 billion) ahead of any potential payment.
(1 dollar = 0.9105 euro)