Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun has filed a constitutional complaint in Karlsruhe in a dispute over 35 million euros. The manager, who has been in custody for three years, wants to overturn a decision by the Munich Higher Regional Court, which, at the request of the Wirecard insolvency administrator, had issued an asset arrest of 35 million. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported on this first.
The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe confirmed receipt of the complaint – file number 2 BvR 710/23 – but not the name for reasons of data protection, as a spokesman for the highest German court announced. However, the Higher Regional Court of the Bavarian capital confirmed that it was the Munich €35 million case.
Are Braun’s fundamental rights violated?
The Federal Constitutional Court will not decide directly on the 35 million, but must clarify the question of whether the Munich court violated Braun’s basic constitutional rights. Braun’s lawyer Bernd-Wilhelm Schmitz rejected the OLG decision in the “SZ” as “incorrect”. “Although we had expressly offered and requested this several times, the Higher Regional Court had categorically refused to even listen to Dr. Braun,” said the newspaper’s lawyer.
With a share of a good seven percent, Braun was the largest shareholder in the Wirecard Group, which has now been largely wound up by the insolvency administrator. When the company rose to the leading stock exchange index Dax in 2018, Wirecard was worth a total of over 20 billion euros, making Braun a billionaire. With the collapse of the group in the summer of 2020, most of the assets were lost again. Both the public prosecutor’s office and the insolvency administrator are trying to secure what is left.
For now, Braun has to be patient. “The procedure is in progress,” said the spokesman for the Federal Constitutional Court. “It is currently not foreseeable when a decision can be expected.”
