By Kirstin Ridley

LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Commerzbank AG has fired the first salvo in what is expected to be a bitter, year-long battle against London-based bankers who accuse the German bank of failing to pay millions of euros in bonuses.
Commerzbank on Tuesday filed a defence document to outline its case against the group of former employees, which has swollen to 83 members, who allege they are owed more than 33.6 million euros ($50 million) in agreed 2008 bonuses.
The former employees accuse Germany's second largest bank of breach of contract and misrepresentation after Commerzbank slashed its bonus pot by 90 percent earlier this year, citing a material adverse change in economic conditions.
But Commerzbank, which received 18 billion euros of government aid after buckling during last year's credit crisis and posting its worst losses in its 137-year history, said the bonus claims were "misconceived".
It said bonuses were discretionary, dependent on bank performance, that bonus letters sent to staff last December were not contractual offers -- and that there had been an "acute danger to the continued existence of Dresdner Bank (the subsidiary for whom some staff worked) as a going concern".
"In those circumstances, the suggestion that the change of policy was irrational, perverse, arbitrary or capricious is hopeless," it stated.
The resurgence of fat banker bonuses, despite the near-collapse of the financial system last October that forced taxpayers to bail out banks around the world, has enraged the public and become a political bandwagon.
But Commerzbank's Chief Executive Martin Blessing, who was the lowest-paid head of a German blue-chip company in 2008, has launched a campaign against excessive bank bonuses and has repeatedly called for an end to guaranteed banker bonuses.
The bank, which has settled some executive bonus claims out of court, last month won a Frankfurt court case against a group of current and former Dresdner staff over unpaid bonuses.
But Stewarts Law, the London law firm representing the British group of staff, has dismissed that ruling as "insignificant".
The claimants are expected to prepare a reply within the next month, after which a judge will set a timetable for the case -- witness statements, expert reports and a trial date -- in a Case Management Conference (CMC) meeting. That is not expected before January.

($1=.6835 Euro)

(Editing by Jon Loades-Carter) Keywords: COMMERZBANK BONUSES/ (kirstin.ridley@thomsonreuters.com; +44 207 542 7987; Reuters Messaging: kirstin.ridley.reuters.com@reuters.net)

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