Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg now has to raise 2.15 million euros for legal fees to clarify the station’s crisis. The RBB director Katrin Vernau informed her staff on Wednesday. The sum is divided as follows: 1.4 million euros have now been spent on the law firm Lutz Abel, which is entrusted with the compliance investigation, which has not yet been completed. 195,000 euros for the law firm Krause & Colleagues, which specializes in commercial and criminal tax law, 483,000 euros for the commercial and labor law firm Morgen & Partner, for the media law firm Schertz Bergmann around 13,400 euros and 5,700 euros for lawyers from the law firm Loh.
“We are now at more than 2 million euros,” says Vernau. She can “only hope” that the final report on Lutz Abel’s investigation “will actually be available soon – and will help us both in the clarification and in the labor law proceedings”.
The legal costs for the clarification of the scandal surrounding the former director Patricia Schlesinger have again increased significantly for the public broadcaster. It was only at the end of April that RBB, at the request of SZ, issued a figure of 1.87 million euros for all commissioned law firms.
RBB is conducting several labor lawsuits with former executives of the station, including Patricia Schlesinger. The broadcaster is also involved in the investigations of the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office. The completion of the external compliance investigation, which has already been delayed several times, is also causing increasing costs. The Lutz Abel law firm is now due to submit the results of its work on June 30th.