From the government’s press release summarizing the complaint:
Deutsche Bank acquired a corporation in the fall of 1999 that held stock with a very low cost-basis, such that the sale of this stock would trigger more than $100 million in taxable gain as a result of the appreciation in value of the stock. In order to avoid paying taxes on the stock’s built-in gain, Deutsche Bank entered into an arrangement with a firm that created three shell companies . . . [that] collectively served as an underfunded special-purpose vehicle with no function other than to be stuck with a tax bill that it could never pay.
The case is before Judge Kaplan