Deutsche Bank’s newly installed South African chief, Danelee Masia, inherits a seven-year-old whistleblower case that could cost the bank more than R109m — and drags a Zuma-era skeleton out of her predecessor’s closet.
The case, set down for 10 days, goes to trial in the Joburg Labour Court on November 2, after lengthy delays.
More astonishing than the amount sought for the alleged wrongful dismissal is how the case, bolstered by the FM’s own investigation, exposes questions around an alleged affair between former Deutsche Bank employee Yolanda Miya and fired Public Investment Corporation (PIC) executive Fidelis Madavo. It also throws a spotlight on how one of the world’s largest banks handled a potential conflict of interest when it was already facing a litany of global compliance failures.
Miya headed the Joburg office’s BEE and public sector financing from 2015, before leaving at the end of 2019. Madavo became chief of the PIC’s listed investments portfolio around the same time. He was, however, suspended in January 2019 and sacked in March 2020 for “gross misconduct” linked to an unrelated politically charged investment that plunged in value.
While there had been much speculation that the relationship between Miya and Madavo saw business channelled from the state-owned money manager to Deutsche Bank, the FM hasn’t independently verified this allegation. The duo now appear openly in public together, kissing and hugging, according to social media posts seen by the FM.
Miya, who was married at the time, tells the FM she was not involved with Madavo while at Deutsche Bank. Repeated efforts to reach Madavo were unsuccessful.
Brett Landman, the bank’s former head of operations and risk, reported the relationship and speculation “inside and outside” the bank about it in 2018. Landman was charged and fired in 2019 and is suing – saying the dismissal was retaliation for making “protected disclosures”.
Deutsche Bank denies this and has opposed the case since 2019, saying it dismissed Landman for “aggressive” and “hostile” conduct that made him unfit for the workplace. The first incident that he alleged led to his removal was a whistleblower report flagging a conflict of interest involving a bidder for a facilities management contract and a Deutsche manager.
No love lost
Today, there is no love lost between Landman and Miya who, after he was fired, texted him to say he was “the most vindictive human being I have ever met”, and: “You can put this on record as being said by me.”
This enmity goes back further, to a Deutsche Bank-sponsored National Treasury golf day in August 2015. Miya had just assumed leadership of the bank’s public sector and BEE financing work, according to her LinkedIn profile, and she invited Madavo to join her at the event.
But Landman and Deutsche Bank compliance blocked her, because the invite included “flights, accommodation, green fees, a halfway voucher, a ‘goody bag’ (valued at R2,000), and a helicopter flight”, his court papers say, exceeding the bank’s allowable limit for gifts and entertainment, given that Madavo was an employee at a state-owned entity and held a regulated position.
Eventually, Miya reached an agreement with her manager, and she shot Landman an e-mail from the event: “We need to do a debrief on this because I just sat at dinner with Fidelis, the finance minister, the deputy finance minister, Dr Dan [Matjila], the CEO of PIC, and the topic of conversation was how DB [Deutsche Bank] asked Fidelis to return the T-shirt and cap from NT [National Treasury].”
She said such invitations were critical to her work, and that she had a table with the minister and the PIC CEO “only because we hosted Fidelis”.
The finance minister at the time of the Deutsche Bank golf day was Nhlanhla Nene. He tells the FM he has no recollection of the situation, but three-and-a-half months later, then president Jacob Zuma would fire him because he would not approve corrupt deals — an event that would mark the peak of state capture.
By 2015, Deutsche Bank was already grappling with its own anti-money-laundering failures. Two years later, New York’s financial regulator fined it $425m for helping Russian clients launder as much as $10bn through mirror trades on its Moscow, London and New York desks; in 2020, the same regulator fined it a further $150m for failing to properly monitor the accounts of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and other control failures.
The PIC manages about R3.7-trillion in government pension and social security funds but has been beset by corruption for years; a 2020 commission of inquiry found substantial impropriety, poor and ineffective governance and a disregard for due process at the asset manager.
The money manager declined to answer specific questions, but of Madavo said only that he was “terminated” following “an internal disciplinary process, chaired by an independent senior counsel”.
Landman cites an example from 2017, when a former Deutsche Bank colleague was selling his home in Waterfall Equestrian Estate, Midrand, and “Miya arrived with Madavo to view the house”.
Miya bought it, Landman said, adding that “Miya and Madavo reside in the house together”.
He says in his court papers he “reasonably believed the rumours to be true that Miya was romantically involved with Madavo”. The FM has not independently verified that they lived together then, but photographs on social media show what looks like a loving, domestic relationship.
Divorce only final this year
“In actual fact, my divorce [from another man] was only final this year,” Miya tells the FM by phone. “So, it is absolutely not true that I was with Fidelis while I was at Deutsche Bank. I left Deutsche Bank at the end of 2019, and I was absolutely not with Fidelis before then.”
In 2018, a Deutsche Bank senior visiting from London spotted Miya and Madavo dining together, noting that they “seemed more familial than … a professional relationship”.
Both he and, months later, Muneer Ismail — Deutsche Bank South Africa’s CEO at the time — asked Miya directly about it. Each time, she said it was “a professional relationship only”.
However, property and trust deed records obtained by the FM show that the M&M Investment Trust bought the Waterfall property for R19m in 2017, with Miya, her mother and Madavo as trustees.
“I don’t have a house with Fidelis and we’ve never bought a house together,” Miya tells the FM. Asked about the trust, she says: “We started a business after I resigned from Deutsche Bank.”
She then declined to answer any further questions.
Company records show Madavo separately founded a business that invokes the name of the trust, registering M&M Advisory in 2020, naming Miya as co-founder.
Before he was fired, Landman grew concerned by repeated allegations — also relayed to journalists in tip-offs at the time — that the relationship was steering “significant business and/or transactions” from the PIC to Deutsche Bank.
In an affidavit to the Mpati commission, Ismail detailed a R250m loan to Togolese group Ecobank in 2017, which was backed by a guarantee from the Government Employees Pension Fund, the PIC’s largest client.
At the time, Miya sat on Deutsche Bank’s deal team while Madavo worked on the PIC’s — during the very months the M&M Investment Trust was buying the R19m home.
Deutsche Bank’s own policy warns against business with people in close relationships, citing risk of “impropriety … in how business is awarded”. This spurred Landman into reporting the risk of the growing speculation of their relationship to Ismail in March 2018 but, Deutsche Bank papers say, Ismail dismissed it as “gossip” and told him to drop it.
After Landman was fired, an internal note quoted Ismail as calling Madavo “renowned for being a very demanding and difficult client” and dismissing the “noise” as “professional jealousy” against Miya.
Ismail declined to comment when approached by the FM but said that “a proper process was followed at the time”.
Aggressive and threatening
In June 2018, three months after Landman raised the issue, a subordinate quit and the bank blamed Landman, saying his conduct made her job “intolerable”. Landman denies this, saying she had found other work. But Deutsche Bank investigated the case and fired him in January 2019.
After Landman challenged his dismissal, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation & Arbitration referred the case to the Labour Court in April 2019, citing whistleblowing and discrimination. Landman’s legal papers describe Deutsche Bank’s ostensible reason for firing him as a “thinly veiled pretext”.
Landman says he acted in good faith throughout, but concerns over the PIC “were obviously not well received by those that were implicated”. A senior Reserve Bank official was also “engaged” during the process; both he and the Bank declined to elaborate.
Masia, appointed chief country officer for South Africa in June after 16 years at Deutsche Bank, has taken the hot seat even though she was not there when the drama unfolded.
Across town, at the Labour Court in Braamfontein, Landman will be asking the court to reinstate him with full back pay or, failing that, award damages of up to R109m under the Protected Disclosures Act. But first he must convince the judges at the Juta Street building that he blew the whistle and was fired for it — something Deutsche Bank hotly denies.
