Several people have already been convicted in connection with the Hamburg Warburg Bank’s cum-ex transactions. Her ex-boss Olearius is now on trial. However, he denies all allegations.
In the Cum-Ex tax trial, the former head of the Hamburg private bank Warburg, Christian Olearius, rejected the allegations against him. “I neither knowingly nor willingly participated in criminal cum-ex transactions,” said the 81-year-old in front of the Bonn regional court.
“I know that I am innocent,” said Olearius. Rather, he assumed legal share purchase agreements. “I was far from harming the state.” He sees himself as a victim of “prejudgment.”
Olearius claims to have known nothing about short purchases
Olearius emphasized that there was no mention of so-called short sales in the documents of the lawyer Hanno Berger, who acted as a consultant in the transactions and has already been sentenced to two prison sentences. Said short sales are a central element of cum-ex stock transactions in which unpaid taxes were refunded and the German state lost billions in total as a result.
With a view to controversial meetings with the then First Mayor of Hamburg, Olaf Scholz, Olearius said that allegations that he had tried to persuade Scholz to violate his official duties were “adventurous.”
Tax damage in the millions
The prosecution accuses him of 14 cases of particularly serious tax evasion, which are said to have led to tax losses of almost 280 million euros. In two cases it remained an attempt. Essentially, the crimes related to the period from 2006 to 2011 and thus the peak phase of stock deals, which the Federal Court of Justice classified as a criminal offense in 2021. According to the public prosecutor’s office, Olearius had dealt in detail with the strategies of the Warburg bank and had also approved cum-ex transactions. The banker repeatedly denies the allegations.
In the case of cum-ex transactions, investors had the capital gains tax paid on stock dividends reimbursed several times with the help of banks. To do this, they shifted shares among themselves with – i.e. cum – and without – ex – dividend entitlement around the cut-off date of the dividend payment. The cases had a wide impact, which is why there are repeated searches at banks and law firms. The Cologne public prosecutor’s office alone is currently conducting around 120 investigations in the “Cum-Ex area”, which, according to their information, are directed against around 1,700 accused.