In the criminal trial against Ulf Johannemann, the former partner at the law firm Freshfields, the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office has demanded a prison sentence of five years and six months. Johannemann played a significant role in the cum-ex transactions of the now-defunct Maple Bank and knew that these transactions were impermissible to the detriment of the state treasury, said senior public prosecutor Hun Chai on Monday in his plea before the Frankfurt regional court. A banker from Maple Bank, who was also accused, should only be sentenced to two years probation because he confessed early on and thus helped clear up the facts.
Since the fall, the former Maple Bank employee and the tax lawyer have had to answer for allegations of serious tax evasion or aiding and abetting. The central allegation: From 2006 onwards, Johannemann is said to have prepared courtesy reports for Maple Bank for illegal cum-ex stock transactions and thereby deceived the tax office, namely about the double refund of a capital gains tax that had only been paid once. The Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office estimates the damage at around 388.5 million euros.
Johannemann remained silent in court for a long time until he admitted his guilt in mid-December and declared that he wanted to take responsibility for the crimes he was accused of. From the prosecutor’s perspective, the confession came too late to significantly reduce the sentence. After the former star lawyer Hanno Berger, who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison by the Wiesbaden district court as the principal of the business at the expense of the state treasury, another central figure in the business, Johannemann, is currently on trial. Nationwide, there are more than 130 proceedings involving more than 1,600 defendants in numerous public prosecutors’ offices in the Cum-Ex scandal.