Non-governmental organisations have called on the Deutsche Bank in Germany to come clean on its connections with - and vested interests in - the alleged fortunes of Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.

Just as the PBB president today declared he has no secret bank account in Switzerland, where an NGO there has claimed assets belonging to him and his family are contained and are being investigated, the same NGO and two others have now questioned whether the German financial services giant has gone against German and international anti-corruption efforts. 

azlan Why, in particular, has Deutsche Bank developed such extensive ties with the Taib family whose wealth has been questioned, asked the Swiss Bruno Manser Fund, the Society for Threatened Peoples and Rettet den Regenwald, a Hamburg-based rainforest advocacy group,

“We are seriously concerned that, as a leading German financial institute, Deutsche Bank is closely cooperating with the highly corrupt and internationally discredited Taib regime.

angela merkel “We feel that this cooperation cannot be in the interest of the German government, which is globally promoting the effective combatting of corruption,” they stated in their letter to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel ( left ).

In addition to asking the German government to clarify Deutsche Bank’s business ties with Taib, they have also demanded that it freeze all of Taib’s assets in Germany.

Hundreds of millions of ringgit owned by companies linked to Taib have been managed by Deutsche Bank and involve a number of off-shore operations, according to the groups.

NONE In 2005, the NGOs said, Deutsche Bank was the sole book-runner for the US$600 million (RM1.82 billion) listing of Sarawak International Incorporated in Labuan, Malaysia’s offshore financial centre.

Before December 2004, they alleged further, Deutsche Bank had arranged a US$135 million (RM409 million) loan for the Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), a state body controlled by Taib.

Deutsche Bank International’s Jersey and Cayman branches are administering the Jersey-based Sogo Holdings Ltd, through which several Taib family assets in the US are held, they claimed.

NONE In Malaysia, Deutsche Bank is running joint ventures with Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), the Taib family’s business flagship, under the names of K&N Kenanga Holdings and Kenanga Deutsche Futures, they added.

Deutsche Bank Asia and CMS are said to be the largest shareholders in K&N Kenanga Holdings, which has a share capital of RM611 million and a further RM2.4 billion in assets.

cahya mata sarawak The related company Kenanga Deutsche Futures has RM387 million in assets, the NGOs claimed further.

Involvement with Taib family’s US assets

Meanwhile, in an exclusive piece on the issue, whistleblower website Sarawak Report alleged it had evidence of Deutsche Bank’s further involvement in the management of the Taib family’s private property assets in the US, via the off-shore company Sogo Holdings Limited in Jersey.

Referring to Sakti International , the company that Taib’s children and brothers reportedly head to manage its properties in the US, Sarawak Report claimed Deutsche Bank has been directly involved in managing an offshore holding company to which Taib’s assets in Sakti had been transferred.

NONE The holding company, Sogo Holdings Limited, originally was the offshore holding company for Sakti and under one BT Trustees in Hong Kong. Following the handing over of sovereignty in 1997, Sogo moved to Jersey and - along with the Taib family trust - was taken over by Deutsche Bank International in 1998, said Sarawak Report .

A former employee of the Taib family’s business empire, the late Ross Boyert ( below, with wife ), who died in mysterious circumstances last year, had earlier been cited as having outlined the role of the Deutsche Bank-managed Sogo as the offshore holding company for Sakti in the US.

azlan Citing the European NGOs, Sarawak Report claimed that the group of Kenanga companies are under the management of boards whose membership include chief officers from CMS and Deutsche Bank.  

“CMS finance chief Richard Curtis and Taib’s son-in-law Syed Ahmad Alwee Alsree are both on the board of K&N Kenanga Holdings, alongside Deutsche Bank’s chief country officer of Malaysia operations, Raymond Yeoh Cheng Seong.”

Yeoh has no less than 37 business relationships with Syed Ahmad and 25 relationships with Richard Curtis, Sarawak Report added, to show the ties between the two companies.

Give the Taib family’s questionable wealth and Taib’s modest salary as chief minister, why has Deutsche Bank developed such extensive ties, Sarawak Report cited the NGOs as asking.

Meanwhile, unsatisfied with Taib’s public statement about the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigation into his assets today, Sarawak Report said Taib has to explain convincingly how it is that he, his immediate and his extended family could have achieved world class wealth by legitimate means.

“The glaring examples of abuse of power, cronyism and timber corruption in Sarawak will make that extremely hard for him to do and have also placed his supposedly respectable business partners, like Deutsche Bank, in an equally difficult position.”