Hamburg’s mayor Peter Tschentscher does not expect any evidence of misconduct by the authorities from the upcoming investigation into the “Cum-Ex” case at the former state-owned HSH Nordbank in the parliamentary investigation committee (PUA) of the citizens. “The PUA’s collection of evidence has already refuted the publicly raised false suspicions of alleged political influence in the Warburg Bank case,” the SPD politician told the German Press Agency. “The processing of HSH Nordbank’s previous cum-ex transactions, which occurred during the period of political responsibility of the black-green coalition, was also handled correctly and responsibly.”
After three years of work, in which the PUA initially focused on possible political influence by leading Hamburg SPD politicians on the tax treatment of the Warburg Bank, which was involved in “cum-ex” transactions, the issue of HSH Nordbank is now on the MPs’ agenda . The investigation mandate was expanded accordingly at the request of the CDU and the Left.
Between 2008 and 2011, HSH Nordbank, which has since been privatized, had capital gains taxes refunded in 29 cases that had not previously been paid. This was the result of an investigation by the business law firm Clifford Chance, which was commissioned by the bank itself. The cases were reported to the public prosecutor’s office and around 126 million euros were ultimately paid back to the tax administration in 2014.
At the end of 2018, HSH Nordbank was sold to US investors on the instructions of the EU Commission and was renamed Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB) after privatization. In connection with the “Cum-Ex” transactions of the predecessor institute, the Cologne public prosecutor’s office investigating these cases searched the rooms of the HCOB 2021. The CDU and the Left in the committee are also hoping for new insights into these investigations.
The representatives of the Warburg Bank shareholders Christian Olearius and Max Warburg had accused the city in the PUA that their own state bank had been able to conduct “cum-ex” transactions for years “without the Senate seeing any reason to clarify this in detail or to do so track”. Tschentscher was Finance Senator from 2011 to 2018.
“The new board of HSH Nordbank uncovered the cum-ex transactions of its own institute and cleaned it up in coordination with the public prosecutor’s office,” Tschentscher told the dpa. Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein would have supported this approach. “At no other state bank have old transactions been processed so consistently and with external support.” The bank’s actions were already presented in detail in the parliamentary committees back then. “The work of the PUA will once again demonstrate these findings to today’s representatives.”
