Economy Briefs: Indianapolis to replace entire fleet with electric, hybrid

INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis wants to become the first major city to replace its entire fleet with electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in a move the mayor says is designed to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign-produced fuels, city officials said Wednesday.

Mayor Greg Ballard signed an executive order Wednesday mandating the city to replace its current sedans with electric vehicles. The city will also work with the private sector to phase in snowplows, firetrucks and other heavy vehicles that run on compressed natural gas, and it will ask automakers to develop a plug-in hybrid police car as one doesn't yet exist.

The city hopes to complete the switch by 2025.

HOUSING

Final foreclosings hit 9-month high, survey says

LOS ANGELES — U.S. home repossessions rose to a nine-month high in November, even as the number of homes starting on the path to foreclosure declined to the lowest level in six years.

Banks completed foreclosure on 59,134 homes last month, an increase of 11 percent from October and up 5 percent from November last year, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

Last month marked the first annual increase in bank repossessions since October 2010, when charges of mortgage industry abuse compelled many lenders to temporarily halt foreclosures.

But the number of houses entering the foreclosure process or scheduled for auction for the first time, so-called foreclosure starts, sank to 77,494. That’s a decline of 13 percent from October and a drop of 28 percent from November last year and also the lowest number of foreclosure starts since they reached 72,163 in December 2006, the firm said.

GERMANY

Deutsche Bank: Co-CEO, CFO targets in tax probe

FRANKFURT — Deutsche Bank says its Co-Chief Executive Officer Juergen Fitschen and Chief Finance Officer Stefan Krause are under investigation as part of a tax evasion probe linked to the bank's emissions trading business.

The bank said Wednesday Mr. Fitschen and Mr. Krause are being investigated because they signed off on the company's 2009 tax declaration. The bank says any errors in the declaration were corrected later in a timely way, adding that prosecutors say the changes were made too late.

Prosecutors said 500 police officers swooped Wednesday on Deutsche Bank AG offices and private properties in Frankfurt, Berlin and Duesseldorf.

Mr. Fitschen took over as co-CEO along with Anshu Jain earlier this year; in 2009, he was the head of the company's regional businesses.

The Frankfurt prosecutors' office said 25 employees of the bank are suspected of serious tax evasion, money laundering and attempted obstruction of justice. Arrest warrants have been issued against five, but those do not include Mr. Fitschen and Mr. Krause, a prosecutor's spokesman said.

Deutsche Bank said the investigation began in spring 2010 and focuses on "a limited number of individuals" under suspicion of fraud connected with value-added tax in the trading of carbon emission certificates.

• From wire dispatches and staff reports