A former manager at Computacenter claims he was fired for reporting that a colleague was letting his girlfriend into Deutsche Bank's server rooms.

First reported by The Register, former service delivery manager at Computacenter, James Papa, has filed a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank, Computacenter, and his ex-supervisor for $25 million in New York state, claiming he was unfairly fired.

According to the lawsuit, Papa discovered that a Computacenter employee had brought someone into Deutsche Bank's tech rooms "who was not a CC employee or otherwise authorized to be present in Headquarters" around March 2023.

Papa questioned the employee about said guest, and learned that it was his girlfriend, 'Jenny,' and that Deutsche Bank's security had let her enter.

Papa told the employee that this should not happen again, however, he claims that Jenny was brought into the headquarters and tech rooms on other occasions when Papa was not assigned to be at headquarters.

Additionally, Papa alleges that a colleague told him Jenny had accessed the employee's Computacenter computer while plugged into Deutsche Bank's network.

Papa then "engaged in protected whistleblower activity" and reported the matter to senior staff.

The lawsuit goes on to note that Jenny was a Chinese citizen and had "significant computer expertise" and that the employee was with Jenny in China in June 2023, shortly after entering the server rooms.

According to Papa, Deutsche Bank and Computacenter knew this was a "significant security breach" that must be reported to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) but the companies decided public disclosure of the incident would "damage its corporate reputation" and thus entered into a "conspiracy" to cover up the breach by instead firing Papa on July 31, 2023.

The lawsuit adds that neither Deutsche Bank nor Computacenter ever reported the employee and/or Jenny to any law enforcement agency - stating that the criminal activity was "at a minimum, criminal trespass, and potentially significant federal crimes associated with breaching DB's computer systems to steal DB client information."

Papa claims that both Deutsche Bank and Computacenter reviewed several hours of video footage of Jenny in the server room including "physically touching" the servers, but failed to determine her actual identity of if she was working for the Chinese government or "any other entity engaged in data/computer cybercrime and/or espionage."

The lawsuit claims that the defendants violated state labor laws, including whistleblower protection, and calls for damages for the emotional and financial harm caused.

Deutsche Bank's main headquarters in the US are located at One Columbus Circle, New York. According to the lawsuit, Computacenter had a multi-year agreement to operate Deutsche Bank's IT at the location, estimating the contract value to be approximately $50m.

Computacenter is a UK-based technology and service provider with international operations.