The investor Anno August Jagdfeld has become a major player in Germany’s real estate industry with prestige buildings such as the luxury hotel Adlon in Berlin or the Grandhotel Heiligendamm on the Baltic Sea. Tens of thousands of investors entrusted millions to the real estate funds he initiated. But they didn’t always earn as much money as they hoped. And again and again there was trouble and legal disputes in court. Jagdfeld is considered quite argumentative, especially when it comes to his reputation. Most recently, the family entrepreneur and the Adlon fund he manages got involved with the insurer Signal-Iduna. Now the Hamm Higher Regional Court (OLG) has dismissed Jagdfeld’s billion-dollar lawsuit against the insurer.
For the reconstruction of the Berlin luxury hotel, Jagdfeld set up the Adlon Fundus Fund No. 31, in which the Dortmund insurance company contributed five million euros. However, disagreements arose later. An investor protection community had been set up, whose spokesman Jagdfeld publicly made serious allegations from then on. An investor in the fund, who has been campaigning for years to bring more transparency to the business practices of the Adlon fund, has had trouble with Jagdfeld.
The Adlon founder accused Signal-Iduna of an “unprecedented character assassination campaign” against himself and his family. The insurance company had spread untrue and credit-damaging allegations about him and his group of companies. This led to a temporary slump in the price of the fund shares in the Hotel Adlon and to “reputational and financial damage to the members of the Jagdfeld family and their companies”. Jagdfeld also accused the Signal-Iduna of having steered a campaign against him through an investor protection group whose late spokesman had repeatedly criticized the family business owner’s controversial business practices.
Comparison with Kirch trial against Deutsche Bank
Before the Hamm Higher Regional Court, it was therefore indirectly about a lot of money: Jagdfeld had estimated his damage at up to one billion euros, which he wanted the insurance company to reimburse. That’s why he complained personally. As managing director of the Adlon fund, he demanded several 100,000 euros in damages in another lawsuit by the fund on behalf of the 4,400 investors who invested money in the reconstruction of the Berlin luxury hotel.
The Hamm Higher Regional Court has now confirmed the judgment of the Dortmund Regional Court in the lower court. The judges recognized no claims for damages. The OLG Hamm announced that the character assassination campaign claimed by Jagdfeld had not been proven. There were no procedural errors in the determination of possible evidence in the first instance. Nor can the insurance company be accused of having reported Jagdfeld to the public prosecutor at the time. Signal-Iduna is not responsible for any damaging behavior of the lawyer of the investor protection community. The Higher Regional Court also did not allow an appeal to the Federal Court of Justice (BGH). Jagdfeld and the Adlon fund he manages can therefore only lodge a non-admission appeal against the decision (Ref.: I-8 U 73/20).
A spokesman for Signal-Iduna described the verdict as a “shattering defeat for Mr. Jagdfeld”. The non-admission of the appeal before the BGH underlines “the baselessness of the allegations”. No one from Signal-Iduna had “ever made any negative comments about Mr. Jagdfeld.” In the run-up to the verdict, the spokesman for the real estate investor had even referred to the large claims for damages brought by the deceased media company Leo Kirch against Deutsche Bank. Kirch’s heirs had received considerable damages from the big bank. Kirch had also gone to court because of his reputation. He had accused the bank of having caused the bankruptcy of his media group.