DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – The CEO of German insurer Allianz said on Wednesday that he expected fewer regulatory fines under U.S. President Donald Trump than under Joe Biden’s administration, which he called “extortion”.
Allianz in 2022 settled with U.S. authorities and agreed to pay $6 billion over allegations that its U.S. asset management unit defrauded investors in a group of its funds that collapsed early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
There was “a lot more extortion under Biden than we expect under Trump,” CEO Oliver Bate said on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, citing as an example U.S. Department of Justice fines.
Allianz’s settlements with the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2022 were among the largest in corporate history, and dwarfed earlier settlements obtained under Biden’s administration.
Bate also said that while Trump’s government was likely to be less popular internationally, he expected him to be good for the financial services industry.
(Reporting by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, editing by Iain Withers)
