The former boss Christian Olearius has to answer in court.
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Cologne A prominent banker will soon have to take a seat in the dock of the Bonn Regional Court: the court has opened proceedings against Christian Olearius. Olearius is the main shareholder and was head of the Hamburg private bank MM Warburg for many years.
The allegations against Olearius weigh heavily: The Cologne public prosecutor’s office puts the 80-year-old on 15 cases of particularly serious tax evasion between 2006 and the end of 2019, which he is said to have committed together with others involved. The court allowed the indictment in 14 cases. Only in one case did the prosecution not carry.
“The accused is said to have dealt in detail with the bank’s strategies and also approved cum-ex transactions he initiated there,” said a spokeswoman for the court. According to the findings of the public prosecutor, Olearius was involved in all planning. According to the prosecutors, he knew all the processes and was responsible for the key decisions.
The Warburg boss at the time is said to have been responsible in particular for signing tax returns. It contained incorrect or incomplete information. In particular, comprehensive agreements regarding the cum-ex transactions were concealed.
The Cum-Ex brand deals were about share group deals with (cum) and without (ex) dividends. With the involvement of short sellers, the banks involved managed to have a capital gains tax that had only been paid once reimbursed several times.
Prosecutors see huge tax damage
The tax damage caused by Olearius is said to be almost 280 million euros. So far, there have already been various convictions in connection with Warburg Bank’s cum-ex transactions. The former General Plenipotentiary S. was finally sentenced to five and a half years in prison. S. was considered the right hand of Olearius.
Tax attorney Hanno Berger, who also worked for Warburg Bank, was also convicted. The district court in Bonn sentenced him to eight years in prison. Berger appealed the verdict and it is now before the BGH for review.
Olearius has so far always denied the blame and has long resisted the charges. When asked by the Handelsblatt, his spokesman said: “Our client has already made it clear that he has nothing to blame himself for, in particular he was far from having intentionally violated the law.” Olearius trusts the rule of law. MM Warburg has now repaid the excess taxes and describes the transactions as a mistake.
The main hearing should also be interesting for Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). In the run-up to an examination of the case by the Hamburg tax office, Olearius met several times with the then mayor of Hamburg. As a result, at the end of 2016, the tax office waived a reclaim of 47 million euros from the cum-ex transactions.
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