On May 13, 2020, media outlets reported that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had sharply criticized Deutsche Bank’s U.S. operations in an internal audit. The audit reportedly found that Deutsche Bank had failed to address multiple concerns identified years earlier, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York continues to rate Deutsche Bank at the second-worst grade on the regulator’s ratings scale.

On this news, Deutsche Bank’s stock price fell $0.31 per share, or 4.49%, to close at $6.60 per share on May 13, 2020.

According to the lawsuit filed in this class action defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Deutsche Bank had failed to remediate deficiencies related to its anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, its disclosure controls, procedures, and internal control over financial reporting, and its U.S. operations’ troubled condition; (2) as a result, the Bank failed to properly monitor customers that the Bank itself deemed to be high risk, including, among others, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and two correspondent banks, Danske Estonia and FBME Bank, which were both the subjects of prior scandals involving financial misconduct; (3) the foregoing, once revealed, was foreseeably likely to have a material negative impact on the Bank’s financial results and reputation; and (4) as a result, the Bank’s public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.