Bloomberg reports that Jens-Peter Neumann, the former head of Dresdner Kleinwort's capital markets unit, has sued the firm over $1.9m in severance pay.

Neumann is said to have bagged a $3.9m bonus in 2008, a year in which his unit is thought to have incurred $7.3bn of Dresdner Kleinwort's record $8.1bn loss.

But Dresdner is understood to have withheld Neumann's severance money (he left following Commerzbank's takeover of Dresdner in January), as the banker apparently refused, in the light of the losses, to return any of his 2008 bonus. The news agency quotes Wolfgang Gerke, president of the Bavarian Center of Finance in Munich, who said: 'It's not justifiable to sue for a bonus or severance pay after such a bad performance. Dresdner Bank executives caused huge losses, and deserve a penalty, not a bonus'. The banker's lawyer, however, insists that the payouts due to his client were awarded independently of his unit's 2008 performance.

Neumann joined Dresdner Kleinwort in 2006, after a career that included stints at HVB, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs.

A former Dresdner Kleinwort employee told Here Is The City: 'It seems that the only people who have done well out of the investment bank in recent years are the unit's senior executives. Dresdner Bank's shareholders clearly suffered, and several hundred of the investment bank's staff are in the process of losing their jobs (and most didn't get much of a bonus last year anyway as the unit in the main only paid out guarantees). Under these circumstances, many current and former employees will be disgusted that Neumann has decided to seek legal redress to recover what, to him, must surely be a rather insignificant amount of money'.

Dresdner Bank CEO Herbert Walter and investment banking unit boss Stefan Jentzsch both voluntarily gave up their 2008 bonuses, although are understood to have retained their severance pay.

The case will be heard in a German court in August.

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