Dusseldorf Idiots, weaklings, socialist gangs. The contempt that Hanno Berger feels for the German judiciary knows many foul words. The tax attorney once called the prosecutors there “ass fiddles in Cologne” in a conversation. Berger told his daughter that he wanted to “hit the pigs”. He referred to a judge as a “pig judge”.
The reason for Berger’s anger was the ban on the businesses that had been very beneficial to him for years. The lawyer earned tens of millions of euros with his advice on so-called cum-ex trading. When the judiciary classified Cum-Ex as tax evasion and searched Berger’s law firm in 2012, he fled to Switzerland.
From there, in the idyllic mountain village of Zuoz, Berger sometimes railed against “left-wing fascist and communist” developments in his homeland, sometimes against “Nazi conditions”. For nine years, Berger hid from the “saubande” and the “dirty pigs”, as he called the German officials. Now he meets her. Berger’s trial begins on Monday at the Bonn Regional Court.
The charges are serious tax evasion and fraud. Cum-Ex refers to the practice of trading shares with (cum) and without (ex) dividend rights in a circle. At a certain point, two parties pretended to own the same stock. One of them then paid the capital gains tax, both of them had it “reimbursed”.
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Berger was involved in cum-ex deals at Hamburg bank MM Warburg, which caused tax damage of 278.5 million euros. The Bonn Regional Court has already sentenced two ex-employees of the bank and a fund subsidiary to prison terms. Berger orchestrated similar deals in many places. A second charge is already waiting in Wiesbaden. Berger has a collective term for all steps against him: judicial scandal.
Fed into your own pocket
Some lawyers consider the Berger case to be a tragedy. Berger used to be one of them, one of the best. Born on November 13, 1950 in Frankfurt, he grew up as the son of a Protestant pastor. After graduating from high school and studying, Berger went into financial administration and became the highest bank auditor in Hesse.
The brilliant official was a mystery to those tested. They asked Berger why he worked so hard for his meager wages. Couldn’t he think of something more pleasant? Something better?
Berger could. In 1996 he became a lawyer in a top law firm, allowed himself to be poached twice, and in 2010 he became self-employed. Big corporations and rich families paid Berger for his advice on saving taxes and making more money. Soon he had something special for them: high returns with zero risk. Cum Ex.
>> Also listen: Podcast Handelsblatt Crime: Hanno Berger, cum-ex string puller and public enemy number one
Berger is said to have approved a large part of the profits from the tax fund himself. He is also said to have withheld this detail from his clients – hence the charge of fraud. Berger denies it. According to the Cologne public prosecutor’s office, he earned more than 13 million euros from cum-ex transactions at Bank MM Warburg alone.
Colleagues describe Berger on the one hand as a man-catcher and on the other hand as a despot. He hardly tolerated other opinions. At the same time, Berger was a bon vivant. He had a penchant for meat, and he had his own set of steak cutlery in his regular restaurant. Even if you could clearly see his appetite, Berger squeezed his tall, plump body into a Porsche 911.
Berger is also a family man, according to old acquaintances. His father died relatively early, and Berger was just as close to his mother as he was to his daughter. Berger took great care of his grandchildren. He expanded his parents’ house in East Hesse and turned it into an entire property with a wood yard. Visitors tell about a swimming pool, huge garages for equipment, a car wash. Berger was like a child himself, with real tractors as toys.
Employees paid homage to him as a “master”
Professionally, Berger was a full professional. A hard worker, his bossy nature coupled with a meticulous eye for detail. Employees paid homage to him as a “master”, but his influence waned after he fled to Switzerland. One ex-colleague after the other gave in under pressure from the public prosecutor. Only the master himself remained convinced that he would be legally victorious.
In October 2017, Berger told the Handelsblatt that he was “a man of the law” and would “naturally” face a trial in Germany. Everything would come to light. There would be no scandal at all, said Berger. Saving taxes is not a crime. He would have just done his job as a tax attorney. You shouldn’t blame him for doing them particularly well.
In December 2019, the Wiesbaden district court allowed the charges against Berger. Before the first trial date, his lawyers reported that he was ill. Berger’s state of health made him permanently incapable of negotiating. Her suggestion: the regional court should discontinue the proceedings.
The court doubted Berger’s lack of vitality, and the tax attorney refused a medical examination. That was too much for the judiciary. Berger was arrested in Switzerland in July 2021 and extradited to Germany in February 2022.
In Berger’s homeland there is no legal doubt that cum-ex deals are illegal and have always been. This is how the Federal Court of Justice decided that all three criminal proceedings against Cum-Ex accused ended. Benno Scharpenberg, a judge at the Cologne Finance Court, previously said that it was “logically impossible to refund a tax twice”. It is in the nature of a tax that this can only happen once. The Federal Fiscal Court recently confirmed the verdict.
Berger persisted in his opinion that he was simply smarter than the state. He called the investigation against himself a “political campaign of annihilation”. Some companions are tired of this lyre. “Overall, when you look at it on balance, Hanno Berger is nothing more than a completely normal lawbreaker,” says a former colleague. Berger deceived his clients. His private verdict: Berger is a disgrace to his profession.
Berger denies the allegations and works in his cell by hand on his appearance in court. Insiders report that the 71-year-old wrote a long document in his defense in prison. One calls it a “pamphlet”. The idea that Berger could read it out in the regional court scared his lawyers. All three resigned. There should also have been a dispute over the fee.
Now Berger has to appear before the judges with public defenders. It is unclear whether he will allow his legal counsel to speak.
More: The Next Wave of Law Enforcement: Masses of Cum-Ex Money Laundering Reports