Everyone likes to have some fun, and if you unwind at a strip club, well, who are we to judge? However, charging the strip club visit to your company as a business expense may be taking things too far. Yet, that’s exactly how four New York Deutsche Bank employees handled their hot night on the town.
The four employees included top executives, like head of equity capital markets Ben Darsney and the managing director who ran most of the bank’s SPAC business, Ravi Raghunathan. The pair took a client and colleagues to the strip club in February. Attempts were made to sweep the charges under the rug after they were submitted.
Just going to the strip club is against company policy, but submitting the related costs as a company expense makes matters worse. The total charges amounted to less than $1,000, so the group did not get much bang for their buck.
The bank did not approve or pay for the charges. Rather, they led to an investigation which uncovered the scheme. As a result, there were multiple firings including the company employees who were at the strip club as well as those who participated in the cover up.
The firings followed a massive restructuring at the company which led to the firing of 18,000 people due to regulatory run ins and disappointing earnings. As a result, the bank had seen its most profitable year in a decade.
“We’ve cleaned up our act 1000%,” said a company source. “New leadership has made a huge change, but when you have 5,000 employees, there will always be an idiot.”
The bank considers any situation where two or more employees are together as a corporate event, even if it’s outside the office or after hours. However, the strip club environment disqualified this particular event.
Other than the two previously mentioned executives, it is unclear who else was fired or what client was with the group at the strip club.
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Meanwhile, people who worked with Darsney and Raghunathan are sorry to see them go. Many called them “good guys.”
