Two senior bankers who say they secured a lucrative European property deal for Deutsche Bank told the High Court today that their share of the profits was “handed out” to other employees who were not involved in the transaction.

Paul Rivlin and Neil Lawson-May, who have since left Deutsche Bank, are suing the German bank for about £5 million for breach of contract.

They say the money they should have received from the deal in 2000 went into a general bonus distribution pool.

Deutsche Bank’s response to their lawsuit was that they were “paid far too much anyway”, their counsel, Edwin Glasgow, QC, told Mr Justice Holland at the start of a scheduled seven-day hearing.

The court was told the two men had been subjected to “personally offensive and rude” comments which demeaned the work they had done on the transaction, known as Project Sicily, a deal between the bank and an Italian utilities company.

The bank had “boasted” that it made £50 million from the deal and, on the evidence of one of its own employees, about £14 million of that should have been shared between those involved in the project, said Mr Glasgow.

In its defence, Deutsche Bank says Mr Rivlin and Mr Lawson-May each received more than £1 million in salary and bonus payments in 2000 and their court claim is “wholly lacking in merit”.

The bank says the pair did not contribute real value to the transaction, nor did they satisfy the relevant criteria for payment of additional bonuses.

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