Germany's Commerzbank said it was cooperating fully with a money-laundering investigation linked to Russian telecoms assets that led to the resignation of an executive board member. A bank spokesman confirmed on Monday that the surprise exit of Andreas de Maiziere, who was responsible for personnel and services at the bank, was linked to the investigation by German and Swiss authorities.
"De Maiziere has taken responsibility for employee misconduct," he said, adding that another employee of the bank had been asked to go on leave in March of last year in connection with the investigation.
De Maiziere, who had been responsible for Commerzbank's central and eastern European business between 1999 and 2004, could not immediately be reached for comment.
"We are co-operating fully with the public prosecutor's office," the Commerzbank spokesman said. "We obviously would like to get this cleared up as quickly as possible."
The Wall Street Journal reported that Commerzbank was involved in a series of transactions that diluted the stakes of state-owned firms in Russian firm Telekominvest, a company set up in 1994 by Leonid Reiman, now telecoms minister and an ally of President Vladimir Putin.
A Russian Telecoms Ministry spokesman denied any wrongdoing by Reiman. "The ministry is not confirming this story and states that the minister is innocent," he said.
The report comes as IPOC, a Bermuda-based fund led by a Reiman associate, and Alfa Group, a Russian conglomerate, await a Swiss court's ruling on their bitter dispute over a strategic stake in mobile phone operator MegaFon.
"This story clearly signals an intensification of the fight between IPOC and Alfa ahead of key hearings in the Zurich Arbitration Court this autumn," commented Moscow brokerage UFG.
Jeffrey Galmond, the head of IPOC, said he believed the investigation was linked to the long-running dispute. "Everything we've done over the past 15 years is on the record and has been presented in arbitration," Galmond told Reuters, denying any wrongdoing on his or Reiman's behalf.