市场消息

LONDON (Reuters) – English voters are expected to use local government elections on Thursday to punish Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party over its failure to deliver Brexit, revealing a divided and dissatisfied electorate.

More than 8,000 seats on English councils – administrative bodies responsible for day-to-day decisions on local policy ranging from education to waste management – are up for grabs in the first elections since Britain missed its March 29 Brexit date.

The results will paint a picture, albeit an imperfect one, of how that has affected support for May’s centre-right Conservative Party, and the leftist opposition Labour Party.

The Conservatives are forecast to lose hundreds of seats, and, according to one analysis, the final toll could top 1,000. Labour, which rejects May’s vision of Brexit but still supports leaving the bloc, are expected to make gains, as are the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats.

That would heap more pressure on May to resign, showing that the deep dissatisfaction with her handling of Britain’s EU exit extends beyond party members into the wider population, angering both those who want to leave and those who want to stay.

“Never did I think a time would exist where I’d get abuse from Conservatives for telling Conservatives to vote for Conservatives, but here we are,” said Stephen Canning a local councillor campaigning for the Conservatives in a pro-Brexit part of south-east England.

BREXIT DEADLOCK
May has been unable to persuade parliament to approve her plan for leaving the EU, forcing her to ask Brussels to extend Britain’s membership until October. She has turned to Labour in search of a compromise that could get enough support, but how, when, and even if, Britain will leave the EU remains unclear.

The first results are due to be released in the hours after polling closes at 2100 GMT on Thursday.

Robert Hayward, a polling specialist and former Conservative lawmaker, said he expected the Conservatives to lose more than 800 seats, Labour to gain fewer than 300 and the Liberal Democrats to pick up more than 500.

Another analysis by academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher suggested that a swing in polling towards Labour could translate into Conservative losses of more than 1,000 seats and 800 Labour gains.

Local elections are historically seen as an imperfect proxy for national sentiment because turnout is low, they do not cover every area of the country, and can be narrowly focussed on local issues such as street lighting and refuse collection.

Council elections take place in yearly batches across England. There are also some local elections taking place in Northern Ireland on Thursday but none in Wales and Scotland, which operate under a different schedule.

The English seats being contested on Thursday were last up for grabs when the Conservatives were riding high in 2015, on the same day as May’s predecessor David Cameron won the party’s first majority in parliament for 23 years.

“A fall from that level is therefore inevitable at some stage and it will come this year – with force,” Hayward said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s unexpected decision to ban all Iranian oil purchases after May 1 – ending exemptions for eight nations – came after hawkish economic and security advisors allayed the president’s fears of an oil price hike, according to three sources familiar with the internal debate.

The unprecedented move to fully sever Tehran’s financial lifeline – finalized just days before the April 22 announcement – underscores the strong influence of hard-liners within Trump’s inner circle. They had for months argued for tightening the sanctions over the objections of some State Department officials who favored allowing some partners and allies to keep buying Iranian oil.

“No one’s actually tried to take this all the way to zero,” a senior administration official told Reuters, adding that forging a consensus among government agencies required “a lot of work.”

President Donald Trump has been eager to halt Iran’s oil exports since slapping sanctions on the Islamic Republic last November for the first time since 2015, a move intended as punishment for Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its support of armed militant groups in the Middle East.

Trump initially backed a go-slow approach, providing waivers to allies and trading partners such as China, India and Turkey.

The United States currently removes about 2 million barrels of oil per day from the world’s supply through sanctions on the Iran and Venezuela industries. But Washington hopes that soaring U.S. oil production – now at an all-time high of more than 12 million barrel per day – will keep global markets well-supplied and hold prices down.

By the weekend of April 20, with the initial 180-day waivers given to countries due to expire May 1, top economic and security advisors convinced Trump that the time had come to cut off Iranian oil exports completely, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The State Department had been engaged in talks with at least five of the eight economies holding waivers, according to sources – China, India, South Korea, Japan and Turkey.

Trump discussed the matter with National Security Adviser John Bolton, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Energy Secretary Rick Perry as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

While Bolton and Perry backed ending the waivers, some in Pompeo’s State Department reiterated worries about the potential for rising oil prices, the sources said, but they ultimately dropped their objections and supported the more aggressive policy on Iran.

SURPRISE ANNOUNCEMENT

The decision caught several U.S. allies and Iranian oil buyers off-guard. China’s Foreign Ministry issued a formal complaint to the United States.

Separately, diplomats interviewed by Reuters from at least two large importers of Iranian oil said discussions about renewing their waivers continued until a few days before the announcement, suggesting the State Department had little time to brief partners on the decision.

Oil prices struck six-month highs after the announcement, but have since eased back.

Trump has long been anxious about rising oil prices impacting the economy and raising retail gasoline prices, and in his last tweet before the waiver decision, he said global oil markets were “fragile”. He has asked members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase the flow of oil to compensate for losses from Iran and Venezuela.

“This was clearly what he was balancing in his own mind,” the administration official said.

One senior administration official said Trump held conversations recently with the Saudi and Emirati leaders on oil prices and received assurances that the two oil producers will ensure the market is well-supplied.

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister responded by saying he saw no need to raise oil output immediately. OPEC production declined by 1.6 million barrels per day between December and March, according to the organization’s figures.

‘THE RIGHT TIME’
The Obama administration, which had imposed sanctions on Iran in 2012 to thwart its nuclear ambitions, kept its waivers in place through the duration of its pressure campaign.

Obama’s sanctions program ended with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an international accord with Tehran reached in 2015 that was meant to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Trump ridiculed the deal and unilaterally abandoned it last year over the objections of the other signatories. International nuclear inspectors said at the time that Iran was abiding by the deal’s terms.

State Department officials said it was the Trump administration’s intention from the start to bring Iran’s exports to zero. But the timing had not been right until now.

The National Security Council, according to two sources, played a key role in driving the argument to end the waiver program – especially Richard Goldberg, a new member of the Trump administration and a longtime advocate for confronting Iran.

Goldberg was “instrumental,” one of the sources said.

Bolton added Goldberg to the NSC earlier this year. In 2018, while an adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, Goldberg told Congress that rolling back Iran’s activities required a “no-holds-barred, pedal-to-the-metal approach” involving political, economic and ideological warfare, along with overt and covert operations to remove Iranian forces from Syria and Yemen.

White House economic advisors Kevin Hassett and Larry Kudlow had also called for ending the waivers, according to a second senior administration official.

“We are doing this … in a favorable market condition with full commitment from producing countries,” said Frank Fannon, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources. “We think this is the right time.”

BEIJING (Reuters) – China and the United States began their latest talks in Beijing on Wednesday aimed at ending a bitter trade war, after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he had a “nice” working dinner the night before with China Vice Premier Liu He.

Mnuchin, along with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, are holding a full day of discussions, before Liu goes to Washington next week for another round of talks in what could be the end game for negotiations.

Liu greeted Mnuchin and Lighthizer as they arrived at a state guest house in Beijing and the three men exchanged pleasantries, but did not make comments directly to reporters.

“Nice to see you, it’s good to be back here,” Mnuchin told Liu. They then all went straight into the meeting room.

Liu had entertained his U.S. guests on Tuesday night just after they arrived.

“We did. We had a nice working dinner, thank you,” Mnuchin told reporters at his Beijing hotel, when asked if he had met with Liu on Tuesday. He did not elaborate.

Beijing and Washington have cited progress on issues including intellectual property and forced technology transfer to help end a conflict marked by tit-for-tat tariffs that have cost both sides billions of dollars, disrupted supply chains and roiled financial markets.

But U.S. officials say privately that an enforcement mechanism for a deal and timelines for lifting tariffs are sticking points.

Chinese officials have also acknowledged that they view the enforcement mechanism as crucial, but say that it must work two ways and cannot put restraints only on China.

In Washington, people familiar with the talks say that the question of whether and when U.S. tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will be removed will probably be among the last issues to be resolved. U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he may keep some tariffs on Chinese goods for a “substantial period”.

The United States has also been pressing China to further open up its market to U.S. firms. China has repeatedly pledged to continue reforms and make it easier for foreign companies to operate in the country.

In comments published in Wednesday, China’s top banking and insurance regulator said the government will further open up its banking and insurance sectors.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve, leaning back against pressure from President Donald Trump to slash interest rates, is expected to leave borrowing costs unchanged on Wednesday as it maintains a ‘patient’ monetary policy stance amid strong economic growth.

Trump, who has accused the U.S. central bank of undercutting his efforts to boost economic growth, said on Twitter on Tuesday the Fed should cut its key overnight lending rate by a full percentage point and renew the quantitative easing program that saw it pump trillions of dollars into the economy in response to the 2007-2009 financial crisis and recession.

Fed officials were in the middle of their latest two-day policy meeting when Trump made his comments.

The unorthodox advice – more in line with what economists on the far left of the political spectrum might advocate – is likely to go unheeded by a central bank that views its current target interest rate as roughly where it should be to keep the growing U.S. economy on an even keel.

The U.S. government reported last week the economy grew at an annualized pace of 3.2 percent in the first three months of the year, surprising Fed officials who had expected the data to signal a slowdown.

U.S. employers added nearly 200,000 jobs in March, evidence of continued strength in the labor market and a sign as well that the Fed’s four rate hikes in 2018 had not constrained the economy.

With no clear reason to cut or raise rates at this point, the focus on Wednesday will be on whether the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee provides any new signal about its likely plans, said Cornerstone Macro analyst Roberto Perli.

“There will probably be discussions at this meeting as to what the threshold should be for bringing rates down,” Perli wrote in a note on Tuesday. “But given the diversity of opinions and the lack of a clear need for an imminent decision, it seems unlikely that the (FOMC) will agree to something specific now and be able to send a clear signal.”

INFLATION CONCERNS
The Fed raised rates four times last year, lifting its policy rate to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent. After its last rate hike in December, the Fed faced particularly sharp criticism from Trump.

Some central bank policymakers have cited ongoing weak inflation, still well below the Fed’s 2 percent target, as a sign rates may be too high.

The Fed is due to release its latest policy statement at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT). It will not provide new economic or interest rate projections, but Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to hold a press conference shortly after.

One technical change officials may make is to trim the amount of interest paid to banks on excess reserves held on deposit at the Fed to 2.35 percent from 2.40 percent. The aim would be to keep the targeted federal funds rate from moving above its current range.

The federal funds rate, which banks charge each other for overnight loans, rose to near the upper level of that range this week, as banks competed more aggressively to meet their reserve demands.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelans were expected to take to the streets on Wednesday for what opposition leader Juan Guaido pledged would be the “largest march” in the country’s history, a day after he called for the military to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

In his boldest effort yet to gain the support of the armed forces, Guaido appeared early Tuesday morning outside a Caracas air force base with dozens of National Guard members. That triggered a day of violent protests, leaving more than 100 injured but without any concrete signs of defection from the armed forces leadership.

“We know that Maduro does not have the backing or the respect of the armed forces,” Guaido said in a video message posted to his social media accounts on Tuesday evening. “We have seen that protest yields results. We should keep up the pressure.”

Whether the protest turnout meets those lofty hopes will provide a key test for Guaido, as some supporters grow frustrated that Maduro remains in office more than three months after Guaido – who leads the opposition-controlled National Assembly – invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency, arguing Maduro’s May 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

While Guaido earned the backing of the United States and most Western countries, the armed forces have stood by Maduro, who retains the support of allies like Russia, China and Cuba. That has frustrated Guaido’s bid to assume the day-to-day functions of government on an interim basis – which he says would be a prelude to calling new elections.

Venezuelan living standards have declined even further in the first several months of the year, with a series of blackouts and water shortages adding to hyperinflation and chronic shortages of food and medicine that have prompted millions to emigrate.

“I hope this will be the last time we have to take to the streets,” said Claudia Riveros, a 36-year-old bakery worker carrying a Venezuelan flag during Tuesday’s protest. “I want to see the end of this usurping government.”

Maduro, a socialist who calls Guaido a U.S. puppet seeking to orchestrate a coup against him, has also called on supporters to march on Wednesday.

“Tomorrow, the first of May, we will have a large, millions-strong march of the working class,” Maduro said in a Tuesday night television address. “We have been confronting different types of aggression and attempted coups never before seen in our history.”

Guaido’s choice of International Workers’ Day for a major march comes as he is making appeals to union leaders and public workers, a traditional base of support for Maduro and his predecessor and mentor, the late President Hugo Chavez.

“If he does get some degree of participation from labor movements, then that can be an additional feather in his cap,” said Risa Grais-Targow, the Latin America director at Eurasia Group in Washington, adding that the march would be “a significant barometer of his support and capacity to mobilize.”

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said on Tuesday he had begun the “final phase” of his plan to oust President Nicolas Maduro, calling on Venezuelans and the military to back him to end Maduro’s “usurpation.”

A Reuters journalist later saw security forces firing tear gas at Guaido and around 70 armed men in military uniform near the La Carlota air force base in Caracas.

The government promptly dismissed any suggestion of a military insurrection.

“We reject this coup movement, which aims to fill the country with violence,” said Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.

He said the armed forces remained “firmly in defense of the national constitution and legitimate authorities,” and that all military units across Venezuela “report normality” in their barracks and bases.

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez tweeted that the government was confronting a small group of “military traitors” seeking to promote a coup.

Diosdado Cabello, head of the pro-Maduro Constituent Assembly, said the opposition had not been able to take over the air base and urged Maduro’s supporters to march at the presidential palace in Caracas.

Guaido, in a video posted on his Twitter account, was accompanied by men in military uniform and opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez, who has been placed under house arrest.

“The national armed forces have taken the correct decision, and they are counting on the support of the Venezuelan people,” Guaido said.

Guaido, the leader of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly, in January invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency, arguing that Maduro’s re-election in 2018 was illegitimate.

He has been traveling outside the capital Caracas more and more in recent weeks to try to put pressure on Maduro to step down.

Protests are planned for Wednesday, May 1, including what Guaido has said will be “the largest march in Venezuela’s history”, part of what he calls the “definitive phase” of his effort to take office in order to call fresh elections.

Around 50 countries including the United States have recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president, and Washington has imposed sanctions to try to dislodge Maduro.

Maduro for his part has appeared to retain control of state institutions and the loyalty of senior military officers.

He calls Guaido a U.S-backed puppet who seeks to oust him in a coup. The government has arrested his top aide, stripped Guaido of his parliamentary immunity and opened multiple probes. It has also barred him from leaving the country, a ban Guaido openly violated earlier this year.

Last week, Guaido said his congressional ally – opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro – had been detained, and that 11 members of his team had been summoned to appear before the Sebin intelligence agency.

Lopez, seen with Guaido, appeared to have left his home for the first time since he was placed under house arrest in 2017, after three years in jail.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Some 20 million barrels of Iranian oil sitting on China’s shores in the northeast port of Dalian for the past six months now appears stranded as the United States hardens its stance on importing crude from Tehran.

Iran sent the oil to China, its biggest customer, ahead of the reintroduction of U.S. sanctions last November, as it looked for alternative storage for a backlog of crude at home.

The oil is being held in so-called bonded storage tanks at the port, which means it has yet to clear Chinese customs. Despite a six-month waiver to the start of May that allowed China to continue some Iranian imports, shipping data shows little of this oil has been moved.

Traders and refinery sources pointed to uncertainty over the terms of the waiver and said independent refiners had been unable to secure payment or insurance channels, while state refiners struggled to find vessels.

The future of the crude, worth well over $1 billion at current prices, has become even more unclear after Washington last week increased its pressure on Iran, saying it would end all sanction exemptions at the start of May.

“No responsible Chinese company with any international exposure will have anything to do with Iran oil unless they are specifically told by the Chinese government to do so,” said Tilak Doshi of oil and gas consultancy Muse, Stancil & Co in Singapore.

Iran previously stored oil in 2014 at Dalian during the last round of sanctions that was later sold to buyers in South Korea and India.

China last week formally complained to the United States over the unilateral Iran sanctions, but U.S. officials have said Washington is not considering a further short-term waiver or a wind-down period.

The 20 million barrels is equal to about a month’s worth of China’s imports from Iran over the past six months, or about two days of the country’s total imports.

Iran says it will continue to export oil in defiance of U.S. sanctions.

A senior official with the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters: “We will continue to sell our oil.”

“Iran is now desperate and will deal with anyone with steep discounts as long as they get paid somehow,” said Doshi.

SOME OIL TAKEN

Some Iranian oil sent to Dalian has moved, according to a ship tracking analyst at Refinitiv.

Dan, a supertanker owned by NITC moved 2 million barrels of oil from Dalian more than 1,000 km (620 miles) to the south to the Ningbo Shi Hua crude oil terminal in March, according to Refinitiv data.

Ningbo is home to Sinopec’s Zhenhai refinery, one of the country’s largest oil plants with a capacity of 500,000 barrels a day and a top processor of Iranian oil.

Sinopec declined to comment.

The Iranian tanker was chartered by state-run Chinese trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, according to Refinitiv analyst Emma Li. The NITC official confirmed the oil was taken by Zhuhai Zhenrong.

Zhenrong was started in the 1990s and brokered the first oil supply deals between Iran and China. At that time, Iran was supplying oil to China to pay for arms supplied by Beijing during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Zhuhai Zhenrong still specializes mainly in buying Iranian oil.

An official at the general manager’s office with Zhuhai Zhenrong’s office in Beijing said he could not immediately comment. The company did not reply to a fax seeking comment.

For now, more Iranian oil is heading to China, with the supertankers Stream and Dream II due to arrive in eastern China from Iran on May 5 and May 7, respectively, Refinitiv data showed.

Some of this crude may be from Chinese investments into Iranian oilfields, a sanctions grey area.

Whether China will keep buying oil from Iran remains unclear, but analysts at Fitch Solutions said in a note “there may be scope for imports via barter or non-compliance from … China.”

Muse, Stancil & Co’s Doshi said the only way to get the Iranian oil out of Dalian now was by cheating.

“Only rogue parties might try to cheat the system and try to pass the Iranian oil at Dalian as something else via fraudulent docs. But I doubt this is easy or can amount to much in terms of volume.”

PARIS (Reuters) – When Boeing launched its 737 MAX jetliner in response to Airbus’s record-selling A320neo, a wave of poker-faced satisfaction spread through Airbus headquarters in France.

Its reasons for cheering Boeing’s decision to make a similar jet, based on a similar strategy of engine efficiencies, partly explain why Airbus is wary of exploiting Boeing’s misery over the global grounding of the MAX today, industry sources say.

Airbus has joined major airlines in expressing confidence that Boeing will emerge soon from a crisis caused by two fatal crashes. In the first place, that is because both giants share a stake in preserving public trust and rarely compete on safety.

“This is not good for aviation,” new Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said of the MAX crisis earlier this month.

But the history of the MAX and its competitor, the Airbus A320neo, also illustrates why the two companies are unlikely to come to blows over the future of the MAX beyond their fierce day-to-day competition, strategists and industry officials say.

Airbus and Boeing operate a roughly equal duopoly in the market for single-aisle jets that Airbus values at $3.5 trillion over 20 years.

Neither can afford to fall too far behind without suffering a big disadvantage on costs, which depend heavily on volumes.

If one of them did, it would likely take drastic action – anything from launching a price war to developing a new jet – that could destabilize both, and so market forces tend to keep the two companies’ strategies in line, industry insiders say.

In 2011, Airbus was testing that alignment with record sales of its recently launched A320neo, offering more efficient engines. It had launched the upgraded A320 after beginning to lose ground to a new competitor, Canada’s Bombardier CSeries.

By adopting similar engines, Airbus was able to block the CSeries and stimulate massive orders from its existing customer base, while sending a message to an even bigger potential rival, China, that the core of the jetliner market would be defended.

But Airbus was also worried that its strategy would have to be torn up as Boeing considered leapfrogging it with an all-new jet that would take longer to build but give more efficiencies.

Airbus knew it would have to respond to this with a costlier Plan B aircraft, code-named A30X, but was facing multiple calls on its cash, including problems with its A400M military plane.

Airbus decided it needed to force Boeing off the fence and struck in its backyard with a deal to sell 460 jets to American Airlines, several people familiar with the negotiations said.

Calculating it would lose too many such deals before its all-new jet was ready, Boeing did a U-turn and announced a re-engined 737 in time to win back almost half the American order.

Engine maker General Electric was also influential in nudging Boeing to a new strategy, and had a draft engine deal ready even before Boeing officially changed position, two people familiar with the talks said. GE had no immediate comment.

WRONG TIMING
Eight years later, both planemakers have sold thousands of their respective re-engined jets and have seen share prices jump five-fold, lifting the entire commercial aerospace sector.

Not only could the duopoly be destabilized if the MAX had to be replaced, but now would not be an ideal time for a technology arms race in this crucial part of the market, experts say.

Led by Boeing, planemakers widened the use of lightweight carbon-composite materials earlier this decade. Then it was the turn of engine makers to produce a quantum leap in performance.

Future game-changers may lie in artificial intelligence and automation in the cockpit, but these are not yet mature.

“The technology for major new steps in materials, engines and piloting are not there right now. It is not the best time for either side to destabilize the market and launch a new single-aisle plane,” a senior industry strategist told Reuters.

Furthermore, Airbus is not as ready as it would like for a parallel race in factory technology needed for a new plane.

Add to this investments already made by suppliers, banks and manufacturers, and their reliance on preserving resale values of planes already flying, and few are in a hurry to start afresh.

“Industrially and competitively it is logical in a duopoly that you need a reasonably strong competition,” said Rob Morris, head consultant at UK-based aerospace advisers Flight Ascend.

In the short term, Airbus has little capacity to push output higher, even though some Boeing customers are already courting it in public – a move partly seen as an effort to negotiate better terms with Boeing.

But the possibility of abruptly rattling the duopoly may have receded under new Airbus sales chief Christian Scherer, a market-share dove who helped launch the A320neo, and Faury, a cautious engineer who is focusing on industrial improvements.

Airbus has already won a larger share of the single-aisle market than expected, leaving the usual 50/50 split with Boeing skewed toward Airbus, now on 60 percent. Experts say a further land grab could have unpredictable consequences for both.

“Boeing can’t accept market share below 40 percent. If the MAX fails, Boeing has to do something fundamental and Airbus has to respond,” Morris said.

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump, three of his children and seven of his companies filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Deutsche Bank and Capital One Financial Corp to block the banks from complying with federal subpoenas investigating his financial dealings.

The federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court’s Southern District of New York, contended that demands for records by Democrat-controlled House committees have no legitimate or lawful purpose.

“The subpoenas were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of the President and his family,” the lawsuit said.

It also complains that the Democrats are hoping “they will stumble upon something they can expose publicly and use as a political tool against the President.”

Representative Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the Financial Services Commission and Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, both Democrats, called the lawsuit “meritless” in a joint statement, the New York Times and other media reported.

On April 15, two U.S. House of Representatives committees issued subpoenas to multiple financial institutions for information on Trump’s finances. Both banks have been involved in Trump’s real estate empire.

“The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern. The Financial Services Committee is exploring these matters, including as they may involve the president and his associates, as thoroughly as possible,” Waters, said in a statement earlier.

Schiff said previously in a statement the subpoenas issued included a “friendly subpoena to Deutsche Bank.”

Trump recently has said that he intends to defy any efforts from the Democrats to dig into his affairs. Among other things, the Democrats have been looking into possible dealings Trump might have with Russia.

The suit, which includes The Trump Organization Inc. and Trump’s three eldest children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka, states that the court has the power to declare the subpoenas invalid.

A representative of Deutsche Bank said in a statement: “We remain committed to providing appropriate information to all authorized investigations and will abide by a court order regarding such investigations.”

Attorneys and representatives for the two sides were not immediately available to Reuters late Monday.