According to the Constitutional Court, the verdict is unobjectionable.
(Photo: dpa)
Cologne Christian S., ex-plenipotentiary of the Hamburg private bank MM Warburg Bank, has failed with his constitutional complaint. The banker, who was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for cum-ex stock transactions, had objected to the composition of the criminal court in Karlsruhe – without success.
In his complaint, S. complained that two criminal judges from his trial at the Bonn Regional Court were previously involved in another cum-ex judgment, including the presiding judge of the 12th Greater Criminal Chamber, Roland Zickler. The court had already made statements on S.’s role in the cum-ex transactions in a first criminal judgment against two former British stock exchange traders at Hypo-Vereinsbank.
The Latin term cum-ex refers to single-share transactions around the distribution date with (cum) and without (ex) dividends. The only concern for the banks and investors involved was to have the state reimburse them for capital gains taxes, which, however, had not been paid at all. The total damage to the tax authorities is estimated at twelve billion euros.
S. worked for the Hamburg bank as a senior employee and authorized signatory and was considered the right-hand man of the long-standing bank boss Christian Olearius, against whom the public prosecutor’s office also brought charges. The main hearing against two other Warburg Bank employees will start shortly.
In June 2021, the court sentenced S. to five and a half years in prison for tax evasion. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) had rejected its appeal against this judgment. In the meantime, S. has started his prison sentence.
The tax office paid more than 168 million euros to Warburg Bank
The Constitutional Court said the verdict was unobjectionable. A single trial against all Cum-Ex suspects would have “excessively burdened those affected with long criminal proceedings and would have been incompatible with the speed-up requirement”. At the same time, in the first proceedings, it was not possible to dispense with findings on the man’s contribution to the crime.
According to the final judgment, the complainant had signed false tax returns himself or, after checking them, had released them for signature. In this way, he and others in charge got the responsible tax office to pay the Warburg Bank a total of more than 168 million euros.
With agency material.
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