Fresh raid at Deutsche Bank offices in Germany

Deutsche Bank offices have been searched for the second time in a week, the German bank said on Thursday, adding the latest were linked to a legal battle with the heirs of late media mogul Leo Kirch. A spokesman for Germany's biggest bank said the raid at its headquarters in the western city of Frankfurt were part of a probe into alleged false statements under oath by former members of the board of directors. "The bank continues to be convinced that these accusations are going to prove unfounded," the spokesman said. A spokesman for the public prosecutor's office in the southern city of Munich confirmed the search had been carried out on Wednesday. In a separate case, prosecutors and tax police last week raided the offices of Deutsche Bank in a probe dating back to 2010 over allegations of suspected tax fraud in connection with trading in carbon emissions certificates. Deutsche Bank said on December 12 that one of its co-chief executives Juergen Fitschen was under investigation, as well as Stefan Krause, who is the bank's finance chief. Fitschen has said in newspaper interviews that he sees no reason to resign over the allegations and insisted he is innocent. On Friday a German court ordered Deutsche Bank to pay damages to the heirs of Kirch in a long-running legal battle over the collapse of his corporate empire. The case erupted after Deutsche Bank's former chief, Rolf Breuer, openly questioned Kirch's creditworthiness in a television interview in 2002. Kirch, who died in 2011, insisted that Breuer's comments led to the collapse of his once powerful media empire and sued the bank for compensation. The court on Friday said the exact amount of compensation would be determined by experts. Deutsche Bank had already been searched in November 2011 when the Kirch probe was opened.