At least the current Financial Crisis shows that the global banking sector is not robust against tail risks. In particular, the sufficiency of solely focussing on risk-sensitive capital requirements in the BASEL II framework to stabilize the banking system has been doubted. A possible solution for the problems that occurred is provided by an additional risk-insensitive leverage ratio restriction in the BASEL III capital requirements.In a perfect world, all banks honestly implement this requirement. What if banks in reality simply use accounting choices or even manipulate their balance sheets to pretend that they reach the required capital ratio? This paper theoretically investigates the relationship between leverage ratio restrictions and incentives to use accounting tricks or even to manipulate the balance sheet. Our model implies that harsher leverage ratio restrictions decrease incentives to practice capital management or accounting manipulation.