In the judgment of the Bonn Regional Court, the bank was obliged to repay more than 176 million euros.
(Photo: IMAGO/Hanno Bode)
Bonn The public prosecutor’s office in Bonn has suspended the confiscation of around 176 million euros from the Warburg Bank announced in connection with “Cum-Ex” transactions. A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office said on Friday that the financial institution had claimed that it had already made these payments to the Hamburg tax office as part of the tax procedure. This is now being clarified by the Bonn Regional Court.
With the confiscation, the first legally binding judgment of the Bonn Regional Court in the “Cum-Ex” affair should be implemented. In the judgment confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in July 2021, the bank was obliged to repay more than 176 million euros.
A bank spokesman emphasized that the bank had already done so. “With the repayments made by Warburg to the tax office in Hamburg (in the tax proceedings), the taxes determined by the tax office for the years 2007 to 2011 due to the so-called cum-ex share transactions of the Warburg Bank have been fully settled.”
In “cum-ex” deals, investors used a loophole in the law to cheat the German state out of money for years. Around the dividend record date, several participants pushed shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend rights back and forth. As a result, tax offices reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid at all. The state suffered billions in damage. In 2012 the tax loophole was closed.
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Several public prosecutors and courts nationwide have been investigating for years to clear up one of the biggest tax scandals in post-war German history. Last year, the federal court ruled that “cum-ex” deals were a criminal offense.
More: Public prosecutor demands 190 million euros from cum-ex transactions