More than twelve years after insolvency proceedings began, those responsible for the former Schlecker drugstore chain must repay a loan of 1.35 million euros. The Zwickau-based company Meniar illegally paid the loan to the group in 2011, the Zwickau district court announced on Monday. According to the report, the company, which provided temporary workers to the drugstore chain based in Ehingen in Baden-Württemberg, is said to have paid a sum of millions shortly before Schlecker’s insolvency proceedings. The verdict is not yet legally binding. According to the information, the former managing director ran the personnel service provider as a front man in trust for the Schlecker family. Now he and the wife and children of company founder Anton Schlecker are to repay the loan and the accrued interest.
The drugstore chain Schlecker went bankrupt in 2012. Around 25,000 employees, mostly women, had lost their jobs. Meniar (“People in Work”) was founded in 2008 to re-employ former Schlecker employees after they had been laid off, but as temporary workers for significantly less money. This “revolving door effect” was abolished with the law against the misuse of temporary work that came into force in 2011. The law is also known as “Lex Schlecker”.
After Schlecker’s bankruptcy, company founder Anton Schlecker and his children Lars and Meike were ultimately forced to face bankruptcy proceedings. The Schlecker children were sentenced to two years and seven months in prison for breach of trust, delaying insolvency, bankruptcy and aiding and abetting their father’s bankruptcy. Anton Schlecker himself was given a suspended sentence.
In Schlecker’s heyday, the company had more than 50,000 employees and around 14,000 branches across Europe. The drugstore king was one of the richest people in Germany and, despite his company’s insolvency, managed to save millions of euros.