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Several defendants in the Cum-Ex scandal have already had to answer before the Bonn Regional Court
Photo: WOLFGANG RATTAY / REUTERS
The processing of the largest tax theft in German history is approaching its core: The Bonn Regional Court has approved the indictment against the lawyer Hanno Berger.
He is considered a key figure in the cum-ex scandal.
As the court announced on Tuesday, the main proceedings against Berger have been opened.
A spokeswoman for the court said the chamber had issued arrest warrants against the defendant living abroad at both national and European level.
The public prosecutor's office in Cologne accuses the tax attorney of having committed particularly serious tax evasion in three cases from January 2007 to October 2013 together with other people.
Hanno Berger is considered to be the engineer behind the Cum-Ex business.
He is said to have persuaded the Hamburg Warburg Bank to take up cum-ex deals and to have helped set up the necessary structures.
He is also said to have acquired "investors, some of whom are bona fide," and provided legal advice to the bank in relation to the cum-ex deals.
The resulting tax damage is said to amount to more than 278 million euros.
Berger should also come to court in Wiesbaden, where the trial is to start on March 25th.
In September 2017, the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office brought charges against Berger and five former traders of UniCredit subsidiary Hypovereinsbank for serious tax evasion.
You are said to have caused the state with the controversial Cum-Ex deals damage of more than 100 million euros.
With the cum-ex transactions, investors had the capital gains tax paid once on stock dividends reimbursed several times with the help of their bank.
Berger has repeatedly denied the allegations against him.
The lawyer has lived in Switzerland since the search of his Frankfurt office and apartment at the end of 2012.
The federal government officially put a stop to cum-ex deals in 2012.
In the first cum-ex criminal trial in Germany, the Bonn district court imposed suspended sentences on two defendants in March - and at the same time determined for the first time that the controversial practice was to be regarded as criminal.
The second process started in mid-November.
A former general agent of the Warburg Bank is accused.
The Bonn Regional Court will announce the dates for the third criminal trial at a later date.
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zob / Reuters / afp