Deutsche Bank’s legal department has suffered a double blow following the departure of two senior in-house lawyers. Legal counsel Sajid Hussein and Francis Dickinson have quit the German bank to join Bank of America and Barclays Capital respectively.
According to sources close to Deutsche, the departures have been triggered by on-going cost-cutting at the bank, which resulted in its lawyers receiving flat bonuses.
In February, Deutsche announced that it would cull a total of 6,400 staff, with many of the cuts expected in London and New York, in a bid to slash annual costs of e1.1bn (£760m) and to hit a pre-tax return on equity target of 25 per cent this year.
Although the legal function was not affected by the massive redundancy programme, one source said:”[Deutsche] don’t care how they meet their target of return on equity of 25 per cent.”
Hussein, who joined the bank in 2001 from Allen & Overy, quit Deutsche at the end of last month and is joining Bank of America in two weeks as its associate general counsel.
Meanwhile, Dickinson, who has been at Deutsche for four and a half years, is leaving on 22 April and is expected to join Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of Barclays Bank, in June.
Deutsche, Hussein and Dickinson all declined to comment.
