A former trader on Deutsche Bank’s distressed credit desk, known for helping the German lender net nearly $1 billion in profit from a single trade, is taking legal action against the bank over his termination last summer.
Mark Spehn, 39, has filed a suit against Deutsche Bank in a London employment tribunal, according to a court filing. The trader, who was a notable moneymaker for the bank’s Distressed Product Group, is suing for disability discrimination and bringing a whistleblowing claim, the document from 2024 shows.
The trader worked at the institution for eight years, having joined from SC Lowy. Among his notable trades, he was behind a long-shot bet on the once-distressed Israeli shipping company Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd., which surged on the back of the bottlenecks created by the pandemic from late 2020. That trade alone contributed nearly $1 billion of profit to the German lender’s bottom line, and was one of the most profitable trades for the bank since Greg Lippmann’s bets against US subprime securities yielded almost $2 billion, Bloomberg reported at the time.