After the trial ended quickly, the judge had one concern above all: whether the seven witnesses who had been summoned could be informed in good time that they no longer had to appear in the Augsburg Regional Court. Thomas Hauss, lawyer for the Munich real estate company that had sued the Free State because of a broken lease, gave the all-clear: Yes, the witnesses he named would be reached. And yes, that also applies to Alfred Sauter. Hauss had reached an agreement with the Free State attorney shortly before the court hearing on Tuesday afternoon. Accordingly, the public sector pays 250,000 euros to CV Real Estate (CVRE), which had originally sued for around nine million euros in damages.
The comparison had a pleasant side effect for the Free State: that it was spared a confrontation with Alfred Sauter, the lawyer, business broker and member of the state parliament, who belonged to the CSU parliamentary group until March of this year.
Because Sauter, that much is certain, was a key figure in this real estate deal in Augsburg, which was canceled in spring 2021 by the then Minister of Construction Kerstin Schreyer (CSU). In autumn 2020, Sauter and a fellow lawyer for the CVRE subsidiary CV GE21 GmbH drew up a rental agreement for a new office building in Augsburg. The Bavarian Ministry of Construction wanted to accommodate part of its workforce there.
According to the draft contract, the Free State would have rented 8,110 square meters for a monthly rent of a good 200,000 euros – almost 25 euros per square meter is a decent price for the Augsburg location. But the building, which is still under construction and is being marketed under the project name “Aurum”, is in an excellent location on the Ladehöfe area, right by the main train station. Over the minimum contract period of ten years, the contract would have had a volume of around 24 million euros, with an option to extend it by five years.
And that the Free State is willing to spend good money on ministerial offices has already been shown in Munich. In 2019 he rented space for the Ministry of the Interior in the former Linde headquarters near Marienplatz for EUR 39.50 per square meter, the monthly costs there amount to EUR 527,000.
For CVRE, the deal in Augsburg would have been a huge success, as such a long-term and solid lease increases the value of the property for a sale that the company is aiming for sooner or later.
But on March 22, 2021, Sauter had to leave the CSU parliamentary group under great pressure from his party. It had previously become known that during the Corona crisis he brokered deals worth millions between the Free State and a mask company and made a lot of money in the process. On March 30, the then Minister of Construction, Kerstin Schreyer (CSU), canceled the signing of the lease. Because of Corona and the increased number of home offices, office supplies had to be reassessed, according to the official justification – which seems strange, however, given that the contract negotiations with the landlord had begun in autumn 2020, when the pandemic had been going on for half a year. And so there is still the suspicion that the Free State pulled the emergency brake at the last moment because it didn’t want to tie another Sauter deal to its leg.
In the court proceedings, the CVRE referred to the fact that a preliminary contract had already been concluded with the Free State at the end of 2020 – which had a binding effect. The story has an even greater dimension beyond the Sauter factor and the alleged corona problem, as it also raises the question of how well one can rely on the Free State as a negotiating partner in real estate transactions.
Because the settlement that was concluded at short notice meant that the subject was not discussed publicly in court, many aspects of this strange real estate deal remain open. CVRE merely stated that one could “live well” with the comparison. The Ministry of Construction did not want to “comment on the details of the procedure”. According to reports, however, the search for real estate in Augsburg has come to an end. Apparently, they want to stick to an existing branch office and accommodate more employees there in the future with flexible working models.