In the cum-ex trial against Hamburg banker Christian Olearius before the Bonn regional court, the defendant wants to make a personal statement on Monday (10 a.m.). This will be extensive, said his spokesman in the run-up to the day of the hearing. In the trial, which began at the end of September, the 81-year-old’s four defense attorneys had already spoken out and rejected the allegations of particularly serious tax evasion in 14 cases. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the crimes, which essentially relate to the period 2006 to 2011, resulted in tax damage of 280 million euros (file number 63 KLs 1/229).
It is the first time that a representative of the top management of a bank has to answer in court in the largest tax scandal in the Federal Republic. Olearius is a personally liable partner of the private bank M.M. Warburg, he used to be your boss.
During the transactions, financial players quickly created a confusion of stocks with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement. The state then refunded taxes that had not been paid. According to estimates, the tax authorities and thus the general public lost a double-digit billion euro amount in the cum-ex transactions. According to a 2021 ruling by the Federal Court of Justice, Cum-Ex was not just an immoral rip-off, but a criminal offense.
