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The public pocket could be boosted by nearly £2m if over 200 former Deutsche Bank shareholders can’t be tracked down.
In bid to find members of the group of former staff members, the German bank has turned to Google, LinkedIn, online directory 192.com, UK Companies House and the Financial Conduct Authority’s register over the past year.
It even went so far as to an employ an investigative group named Kroll.The efforts were met with partial success, with the ‘lost’ group members whittled down from 546 to 274 individuals.
Some of the untraceable remainder are missing out on as much as much as €50,000 (around £44,000).
Pictured: The bank turned to internet searches and even hiring an investigative group to find the lost shareholders.
Worth £1.74m in total, the unclaimed assets are made up of shares and dividend payments given to bank employees across the globe as a performance incentive.
From 1998, those funds were deposited in Jersey, where it had a branch.
However, after Deutsche Bank had taken the decision to transfer some of its business to Butterfield more than 20 years later, computer systems flagged up the hundreds of shareholders as ‘lost contact’.
Unable to track them all down, the bank appeared before Jersey’s Royal Court last month to ask that the Receiver General - a representative of the Queen responsible for looking after unclaimed assets - take control of the assets instead.
Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith, sitting with Jurats Austin Vautier and Hughes, granted the request.
Pictured: The case was heard in Jersey's Royal Court.
Deutsche Bank also put up £75,000 so that, if any shareholders do eventually come forward, they won’t have to pay to claim their cash from the Receiver General, who normally charges a fee.
However, if no one comes forward within 15 years, the money will be given to Jersey.
But, according to the court judgment, Jersey won’t have to wait that long to reap some benefits from the decision.
The assets will now be invested by the Receiver General, and all profits will be paid annually to Jersey’s government.
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