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Three more former big hitters at Dresdner Kleinwort in London today launched legal actions against the bank, demanding millions of pounds in unpaid bonuses and severance pay.
John McIntyre, Bertrand Pinel and Alberto Piedra were senior executive committee members of the Gresham Street-based investment bank and claim they deserve to be paid bonuses guaranteed by Dresdner before the takeover.
When Commerzbank bought the business, it told Dresdner staff there would be no bonuses paid for 2008 because of the collapse in banking profits. McIntyre, Dresdner Kleinwort's former head of strategic advisory, is suing for a guaranteed bonus of £1.36 million and £743,200 severance pay.
Pinel, former head of global finance, is suing Dresdner for a �2.2 million (£1.9 million) bonus and severance pay of �3.2 million.
Piedra, formerly in charge of global banking, is seeking a �3 million bonus.
Most of the trio's former senior executive colleagues have already won their bonus claims in court or through out-of-court settlements. They were mostly represented by Mishcon de Reya. Several dozen more junior employees represented by Mischcon and Stewarts Law are now waiting in the wings with further actions varying from around £50,000 to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Those lower down the Dresdner tree claim they were told last year that there was a pot of �400 million to be distributed at the end of the year. They were then told by letter in November how much they individually would be paid. However, the letter came with the caveat that the bonuses could be revised if the results were worse than the bank expected.
Commerzbank is expected to argue that the results were worse than expected, but the claimants will argue that this was only due to Commerzbank's more conservative accounting rules.
