A German law professor has lodged a legal complaint against the board of the country's central bank, suggesting it has given indirect aid to other eurozone countries by allowing growing imbalances in money transfers within the currency bloc. Bernd Schuenemann of Munich University has filed a complaint with the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt, asking the office to look into his suspicion that the Bundesbank's six-member board has been in collective breach of trust.
The Bundesbank had built up 615 billion euros ($812 billion)in liabilities via the euro zone's cross-border payment system, known as TARGET2, Schuenemann said in a statement, adding that this was far greater than Germany's contribution to Europe's bailout funds and was not approved by parliament. "The Bundesbank has already commented on various occasions publicly on the problem of TARGET2 balances," a spokesman for the German central bank said. "We cannot see grounds for criminal relevance in connection with this."