The Bonn Regional Court has allowed the Cologne public prosecutor’s office to charge Christian Olearius, the former general partner of the Hamburg Warburg Bank. The court announced on Wednesday in Bonn that the main proceedings in the Cum-Ex complex would be opened. The dates for the main hearing should be announced separately.
The public prosecutor charged the accused with 15 cases of particularly serious tax evasion between 2006 and the end of 2019, which he is said to have committed together with those who were persecuted or convicted separately. Two cases are said to have remained at the experimental stage. The resulting tax damage is said to be almost 280 million euros. According to the court, the prosecution was admitted in 14 cases and the proceedings in one case – allegations of tax evasion in relation to the bank’s proprietary trading in the 2010 dividend season – were not opened due to the prohibition of double prosecution.
For years, the Hamburg Parliament has been investigating whether the then Mayor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had any influence on the tax case of the Warburg Bank, which was involved in the “Cum-Ex” scandal. Today’s Federal Chancellor denies that. Now, according to the will of the Union, the Bundestag should also set up a committee of inquiry. He is supposed to clarify whether political influence was exerted on the tax case during Scholz’s time as Hamburg mayor and whether claims against the bank in the millions should be waived. It is also to be examined whether gaps in memory, to which the Chancellor refers in this context, are credible.
In “cum-ex” deals, investors used a weakness in the processing of tax payments to cheat the German state out of money for years. Around the dividend record date, several participants pushed shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend rights back and forth. As a result, tax offices reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid at all. The state suffered billions in damage.
According to the press release, the accused Olearius is said to have dealt in detail with the bank’s strategies and also approved “cum-ex” transactions that he had initiated there. In addition, he is said to have been involved in all the planning, so that he knew all the processes and made the relevant decisions. (dpa)
