A colleague walked in on the pair as they were sprawled across the banker's desk high up in the Helaba bank headquarters in Frankfurt.

But the punctilious co-worker was less shocked by what they were doing than the fact that neither of them had ‘clocked out’ prior to their extra-curricular activities, violating bank regulations.

As far as managers were concerned, the thrust of the affair was not that the pair were getting down and dirty on a desk - but that they were technically bonking on the bank's time.