The RBB Broadcasting Council will meet for a special session on Friday. The topic will be the costs and tasks of the pulpits commissioned to clarify the station crisis. There have been publications on this in the past few days, not least from the RBB research team. Director Katrin Vernau therefore feels compelled to make a statement to the workforce before the Friday appointment. Your “circular letter” is available in the Tagesspiegel.
Too much money for too many lawyers?
“Rbb is in the headlines again. The reporting from our company also contributes to this,” writes Vernau. . Specifically, it’s about trying to clarify all the processes and allegations in the wake of the RBB crisis – and it’s about the question of “whether we’re paying too much money to too many lawyers.” The meaningfulness, honesty and professionalism of the legal commitment is also called into question.”
Vernau wants to straighten that out. For example, she never made a secret of the costs for the work of the Lutz|Abel law firm. The one-million-euro threshold has been broken for the costs incurred by Lutz|Abel so far. We are still waiting for the final report, but Vernau cannot give a date. She attaches importance to the fact that Lutz|Abel, as an independent law firm, was commissioned long before she took office during the crisis, namely in July 2022.
Clients are the board of directors and the compliance officer. It is the broadcaster’s task to supply all the necessary information and documents – and to pay the law firm’s invoices after the client has checked that they are factually correct. According to Vernau, the RBB does not have any influence on the way the law firm works and its pace.
“Of course I – together with the clients – informed myself about the topics that Lutz|Abel is investigating and, together with the clients and the lawyers, I set priorities in the order of processing.” For individual criminal law issues, the lawyers from Lutz/ Abel consulted the law firm Dankert.
Once again, rbb is in the headlines.
Catherine Vernau
Which law firms are now specifically involved in clarification and reappraisal? Here, too, there is no reason for secrecy, emphasizes Vernau and then gets specific. The law firm von Morgen & Partner advises the director on labor law issues. The law firm Krause & Colleagues, specializing in white collar crime and criminal tax law, has been supporting the RBB since July 2022 and is also the contact for the Attorney General’s Office. Irrespective of this, the law firm of Kappelmann & Partner supports the broadcaster in the reversal of the digital media house.
“You see, we also obtain these different types of expertise externally because rbb must and will do everything to check financial claims against others and to keep them away from themselves,” writes Vernau. She also contradicts the assessment expressed in the report that these are “manageable allegations”, which is why the legal fees incurred so far are unreasonable. The difficulty of the clarification lies, among other things, precisely in the fact that it is a question of a considerable number of highly complicated events and allegations against several people. The Lutz|Abel law firm, for example, has to view around 15,000 documents.
Office fees
What has each law firm cost RBB so far? Vernau provides the following list:
Lutz|Abel (July 1 – November 30, 2022): EUR 979,819 Krause & Colleagues (July 19 – December 31, 2022): EUR 159,796. von Morgen & Partner (August 1 – November 31, 2022): 132,823 euros (on behalf of the Board of Directors) von Morgen & Partner (September 1 – December 31, 2022): 107,626 euros (on behalf of rbb) Schertz Bergmann (29 June 2022 – August 10, 2022): 13,411 euros
Vernau emphasizes, “All in all, invoices for the service period June-December 2022 totaling almost 1.4 million euros have accumulated. It is clearly premature to conclude from the results available so far that we could have saved some of the investigations and consultations.” One thing, however, can be said for sure: the RBB cannot win a case in court on the basis of incomplete and in part inappropriate media reporting and thus not holding anyone accountable – and anyway not talking about a systematic and complete clarification.
Finally, Katrin Vernau evokes the sense and purpose of the process: “We are currently making the high and costly effort not least to be able to hold those responsible accountable for their actions in the past and above all to identify and eliminate all weak points in the old system to be able to “If at the end of this process there is a comprehensive and complete clarification and possibly also the relief or the claiming of others for costs incurred by rbb – “then rbb or the contributor is the first and most important beneficiary”.
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