Clearstream, the Luxembourg-based international depository owned by Deutsche Börse, is appealing to the French courts to disassociate its name from a French scandal involving alleged bribes to the country's top politicians.

Clearstream has lodged a claim for reputational damages in the French high court as judges re-investigate claims that politicians, including Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister, held accounts with Clearstream into which kickbacks for the sale of warships to Taiwan were paid. The claims first surfaced in 2001.