Mired in a major international corruption scandal, the proposed Punta Catalina coal plant in the Dominican Republic became untouchable for Deutsche Bank, ING, Santander, Société Générale and Unicredit in 2017. As the gravity of the situation surrounding the project’s construction company Odebrecht intensified, the five bank consortium suspended its financing of the project, triggering a panicked turn to the international bond markets by the Dominican government in order to find some way of keeping the project afloat. BankTrack maintained regular contact with the lead consortium banks throughout the year, in tandem with our Dominican partner group National Committee to Combat Climate Change (CNLCC). We brought CNLCC’s Enrique de León to the AGMs of Deutsche Bank and Société Générale where he received public assurances from senior bank executives that they would be taking a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to corruption at Punta Catalina.  

Deutsche Bank is not moving out of coal as quickly or as comprehensively as we would like, but the January 2017 commitment from Germany’s biggest bank to reduce its exposure to thermal coal and to no longer grant project financing for greenfield thermal coal mines and new coal-fired power stations confirmed that long-standing campaigning from BankTrack and our German partners urgewald is paying off. Deutsche Bank’s move, however, applies only to project financing for coal projects, and not to corporate loans and investment banking services which provide the bulk of the bank’s support for coal-focused companies.

In February, BankTrack coordinated and sent an open letter to the 11 banks that signed a Discussion Paper by the Thun Group, calling for the paper's withdrawal. The paper took as its starting point that banks do not contribute to human rights abuses through their finance, flying in the face of UN advice on banks’ human rights responsibilities. The concerns raised in the letter were quickly echoed by others, and following further discussions the paper was revised in December, partially addressing the concerns. 

At Deutsche Bank's shareholder meeting in May, the bank finally announced an end to its support for mountaintop removal mining (MTR). The bank had been the largest banker behind the controversial practice. Two months previously the bank announced an incremental phase-out of its MTR finance, without any timescales, which was criticised as inadequate by campaigners. The move follows years of campaigning from BankTrack alongside urgewald, Rainforest Action Network and others.

In 2014, JP Morgan, Cit, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland all responded to a worldwide pressure campaign of NGOs, including Banktrack, urgewald, Greenpeace and Market Forces, by announcing that they would not help finance the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal in Australia. While ANZ and others remain tied to the deal for now, these banks did the right thing in foregoing this destructive deal that threatens the Great Barrier Reef.

Deutsche Bank has told Friends of the Earth Europe and Rettet den Regenwald that it sold its shares in the Indonesian palm oil supplier Bumitama, an important supplier to palm oil giant Wilmar, following months of campaigning by the two groups. Despite numerous promises to clean up its act, Bumitama continues to produce illegal palm oil. Bumitama supplies palm oil to one of the largest global traders in palm oil, Wilmar International, and received financial support from well-known European banks including HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Rabobank. Read more.

Coal India Limited's attempt at a public share issue was successfully blocked in late 2013. The Indian government, the company's majority shareholder, hoped toraise USD 3 billion through the sale of 10% of its stake in the world's largest coal miner. Banktrack was part of a coalition of groups including Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and urgewald that pressured the banks underwriting the share offer (Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs) for their involvement with a company with a notorious environmental and human rights record. Read more [external link].

In 2010, Germany's biggest bank Deutsche Bank announced that it had divested its 2% stake in Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms company that supplies the Israeli military and provides components for the Separation Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The announcement followed a concerted campaign from German human rights organisations.

In the fall of 2006, Deutsche Bank, HypoVereinsbank and Commerzbank withdrew from the Belene nuclear power project, sited in an earthquake area in Northern Bulgaria. Through media work, postcards and e-mails, visits at the banks' AGMs, an international protest day and a protest week in 60 German cities, the banks were dissuaded from financing this extremely controversial project. The project was eventually called off in 2012.