He achieved international recognition in 2017 when he filed a lawsuit against BNP Paribas for its continued refusal to deliver €163 million in securities he had purchased in December 2015, one of the largest civil cases brought by a private investor in Germany.
[2] In June 2016, the German magazine Focus was the first to publish an article regarding a December 2015 erroneous trade of €163m allegedly involving BNP Paribas Arbitrage.
[3] On 19 May 2017, Armin S. filed an initial €1 million civil suit against BNP in Frankfurt District Court,[2][4] believing that a decision by the court in favor of his position could then confirm that BNP must pay the remainder, while avoiding the significant legal cost of his losing a full €163 million civil suit.
[7] He reemphasized that the third largest bank in Europe, with (then) €42 billion in gross annual income, should have trading systems and risk management that actually works, rather than simply relying on "arrogance...
", and discussing how Armin S. had approached the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) of Germany, as well as the European Central Bank (ECB), to highlight that BNP put the German and European financial systems at risk by not spotting the mistake in their risk management programs and thereby violated supervisory rules of the ECB.
Armin S. is quoted: "BNP wants to rely on statutory safeguard clauses but on the other hand they ignored all control-tasks imposed by the regulators — ECB, BaFin and AMF — for a whole week".