You guys are ignoring that this is a discretionary account with DB. Not a typical client advisor relationship.

You guys say

Most client-advisor relationships at the big brokers/wirehouses are by no means fiduciary in nature (this is a common misperception).

I don't see how there's any fiduciary responsibility. The chairman explained that away by saying that, at the time, the DB people believed the market for these sorts of things was OK. Same as you or me listening to a broker tell us that preferred ETFs

RG said

"In November 2007, the board and our CFO outlined and approved an investment policy to allow certain of the company’s funds to be discretionally managed by Deutsche Bank (DB)..., in order to provide professional management of monies not immediately required for the day-to-day operations at the company. "

IMHO this makes Deutsche fiduciarly (sp?) responsible.

I imagine the instructions to DB were to make investments with the highest yield but that would be available in the short term. If the instructions were more on the lines of 'put our money in long term illiquid investments', then I agree with you guys that we are hosed.