Recycling specialist
Metals worth 169 million euros disappeared: Aurubis fires three board members
Aurubis – here the entrance to the East plant in Hamburg – is a company specializing in copper and recycling
© Georg Wendt / DPA
At the copper and recycling specialist Aurubis, three board members have to leave – that’s what the supervisory board has decided. The trigger was massive metal thefts and a chemical accident.
After a long undetected loss of millions due to fraud and theft at Hamburger Aurubis AG CEO Roland Harings and two other board members have to leave the company early. The copper and recycling specialist announced this on Tuesday after a meeting of the supervisory board.
“The three board members are taking into account the special challenges faced by Aurubis in the past financial year, particularly with regard to the serious cases of fraud and theft at the Hamburg plant and incidents in the area of occupational safety,” the statement said. Last year, three employees died in a nitrogen leak at Aurubis.
The cases of theft and fraud remained undetected for a long time. This also sparked criticism of the company’s risk management. Shortly before Christmas, the Supervisory Board had therefore essentially put the Executive Board on call. It cannot be ruled out that there will be an early separation of one or more board members.
Aurubis supervisory board waives compensation
A law firm then investigated the responsibility of the board of directors in connection with the crimes on behalf of the supervisory board. Based on the law firm’s legal opinion, “the supervisory board has now decided, based on the current status, to refrain from asserting claims for compensation against the three board members.”
Harings, whose contract actually ran until mid-2027, was still confident in mid-December “that the investigations show that we have managed the company with all due care and responsibility.” Earlier this week, the company reported “well-advanced discussions with three board members” regarding early termination of their roles.
Harings is now leaving Aurubis at the end of the financial year on September 30th. Production director Heiko Arnold will be giving up his position on February 29th, and financial director Rainer Verhoeven on June 30th. Only Inge Hofkens, the board member who was only appointed at the beginning of 2023 and is responsible for the recycling business, will retain her board mandate. Successors for the three departing managers have not yet been determined. “The supervisory board has initiated the process to fill the positions as soon as possible,” it said. In addition, supervisory board member Markus Kramer will be seconded from the control committee to the executive board from March to September.
Metal theft and chemical accident
Aurubis has been the target of criminals in several cases until recently. The bottom line is that in December, when presenting the annual results for 2022/23 (September 30), the company spoke of a metal shortage of 169 million euros. The balance sheet for the past financial year was also overshadowed by a fatal chemical accident. Nitrogen had escaped; three men aged 24, 49 and 53 died as a result.
Metal recycling
This is where scrap is turned into copper again
A large-scale fraud was particularly painful for the company financially. This was noticed during regular checks of the metal inventory. There were significant deviations from the target inventory as well as deviations in special samples of certain recycling deliveries. Aurubis assumes that manipulated samples with high levels of valuable metals were delivered, but that the deliveries then contained significantly less valuable metals – which ultimately led to excessive invoices being paid.
Stolen material containing 5000 kilos of silver and gold
But precious metal thefts also caused damage. Just last week, the police arrested an employee as he was leaving the Hamburg factory premises. According to police, several kilograms of an intermediate product were found in his backpack. The man and two other suspects are said to have stolen material worth a mid-six-figure amount in several thefts since August last year.
A trial against six defendants is currently underway at the Hamburg Regional Court for similar thefts in 2020. Four of the accused confessed on Monday. The six men are said to have transported intermediate and by-products from the Aurubis company premises in the Veddel district. According to the prosecution, the stolen material contained around 5,000 kilos of silver and gold worth a total of eleven million euros.