Juergen Fitschen, the outgoing co-CEO of Deutsche Bank, has been cleared in court of lying to judges. Fitschen and 
four former staff from the bank were acquitted in Munich at the end of an almost year-long trial. Fitschen is due to step down from the top job in May. The executives were accused of deceiving judges in a civil lawsuit filed by Leo Kirch, who died in 2011, seeking €2 billion. Kirch claimed that former bank chief Rolf Breuer caused his media company’s demise when questioning its creditworthiness in a Bloomberg Television interview that aired in February 2002. The presiding judge at the trial roundly rejected theories submitted by prosecutors that the interview was part of a plan to drive Kirch into bankruptcy and allow the bank to seek the company’s restructuring work.
