How Landesbanken reached into the state coffers

Dusseldorf It’s an affair the likes of which the financial world has never seen. More than 100 banks and more than 1,500 individuals are suspected of having enriched themselves from the state. With cum-ex deals, they traded shares in circles for years to trick the tax authorities. In the end, those involved had more taxes refunded than they had paid.

Rolf Raum, presiding judge at the Federal Court of Justice, called cum-ex transactions a “bare grip on the till into which all taxpayers pay”. His description was made in March 2021 on the occasion of a final verdict against two stock exchange traders. The involved Hamburg private bank MM Warburg had to repay 176 million euros.

The Bonn Regional Court sentenced two Hypovereinsbank stock traders and two Warburg managers, some to several years in prison without parole, and the indictment against long-time Warburg CEO Christian Olearius has just been completed.

At least the rule of law works in the cum-ex scandal, one might think.