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As Hamburg's First Mayor, Olaf Scholz (SPD) met Christian Olearius more often than previously admitted.
Photo: STR / AFP
In the Cum-Ex scandal, the private bank Warburg may have tried intensively to exert influence on the Hamburg government in order to avoid a tax refund in the millions.
This emerges from the diaries of the co-owner of the Warburg Bank, Christian Olearius, on which the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", the "Zeit" and the NDR reported.
Accordingly, there were three meetings and one phone call between Scholz and Olearius in 2016 and 2017.
So far, Scholz had only spoken of a visit from the bank boss in 2017.
In the summer of 2016, the Cologne public prosecutor's office investigated allegedly illegal cum-ex deals against Warburg-Bank and Olearius.
At the meeting, according to NDR and "Zeit", Olearius Scholz is said to have informed about the investigations against him and the Warburg Bank, as well as impending tax reclaims in the multi-digit million range by the Hamburg tax authorities - apparently to organize political assistance.
At the request of the "SZ", Scholz has now confirmed the meeting.
However, Scholz emphasized that he had never "exercised any influence in the tax matter".
According to the reports from NDR and "Zeit" there is no evidence of this so far.
Olearius was also in contact with the SPD's budgetary spokesman in the Bundestag at the time, Johannes Kahrs, and with the Hamburg SPD politician Alfons Pawelczyk.
He is also said to have written to the then Hamburg Senator for Finance and now First Mayor Peter Tschentscher in consultation with Scholz.
In cum-ex transactions, stock traders traded shares with ("cum") and without ("ex") dividend entitlements between several participants around the dividend cut-off date.
In the end, it was no longer clear to the tax authorities who owned the papers.
Tax offices reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid.
The German state suffered billions in damage.
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hej / AFP