When former Deutsche Bank risk officer Eric Ben-Artzi revealed in August that securities regulators would award him half of a $16.5 million award for his tips about misconduct at the bank, there was a twist: He was rejecting the money.
Ben-Artzi, who wrote about his decision in the Financial Times, said he was spurning his share of the award in protest. The $55 million fine imposed on Deutsche missed the mark, Ben-Artzi said, hurting the bank’s shareholders and rank-and-file employees rather than the higher-ups who orchestrated the misconduct. No executives were punished for allegedly inflating the value of a massive portfolio of credit derivatives.
