Although it is now called Hamburg Commercial Bank, it will not shed its legacy as the former HSH Nordbank: According to information from WDR, NDR and Süddeutscher Zeitung Investigators from the Cologne public prosecutor’s office searched the bank’s premises in Hamburg this Tuesday.
The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne confirmed the search of the bank at the request of the research association, as did the bank itself. While the prosecutors did not want to comment on details, a spokeswoman for the now privatized Hamburg Commercial Bank AG emphasized: “The search is not aimed directly at the bank, but this is searched as a third party. ” It is also known that the measures are related to cum-ex investigations by the Cologne authority.
The so-called cum-ex deals are one of the biggest tax scandals in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. Banks, stock market traders and operators of investment funds had multiple capital gains tax reimbursements when trading shares with (cum) and without (ex) dividends, but they only paid it once. HSH Nordbank, which arose from a merger of the Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein Landesbanken, was also involved in cum-ex deals between 2008 and 2011. The bank then dealt with the affair in an investigation.
The “facts” had already been reported to the Hamburg public prosecutor and the tax authorities in 2013/2014, as the spokeswoman for HSH’s legal successor explained. “The bank cooperates fully with the authorities. The refunded tax has been repaid in full. The Cologne public prosecutor’s office was also sent the report from the external law firm after the investigation was taken over.” In 2014, HSH transferred a total of 126 million euros back to the tax authorities, including 14 million euros in interest.
More than ten billion euros in tax damage
But even when the tax procedure is over, criminal investigations continue: The Cologne public prosecutor’s office is investigating two former employees of the bank on suspicion of tax evasion. It is currently not known whether the raid on Tuesday has anything to do with this; it can also be based on other or new findings. However, it is a surprise in that the public prosecutor in Hamburg had not conducted any investigations for years.
HSH Nordbank’s stake in Cum-Ex was also an excitement in itself because the institute had to be rescued by the state in the course of the financial crisis and received three billion euros from the state coffers of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. And even if the cum-ex practice ended in 2012 due to a change in the law – the behavior of those involved continues to have an effect to this day.
The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne is investigating around 900 managers, dealers and lawyers across Germany for tax evasion. The damage to taxpayers is estimated at more than ten billion euros. In March 2020, two British investment bankers were convicted for the first time in a German cum-ex trial. The Federal Court of Justice will decide at the end of this month to what extent the judgment will endure. On June 1 of this year, the Bonn Regional Court found a German banker guilty and sentenced him to five and a half years in prison. In both cases it was about the private bank MM Warburg, which is also based in Hamburg.