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Protective masks: At the beginning of the corona crisis in Germany, there was still a shortage of goods
Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / picture alliance / dpa
It almost seemed as if the scandal surrounding the Swiss mask company Emix was slowly dawning: Two young entrepreneurs, newcomers to the protective masks business, had made it in the mask crisis of 2020 to provide the federal government with urgently needed protective equipment with the help of a CSU connection to turn at moon prices. Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia also bought there; Total public sector volume: around 730 million euros. But the calm was deceptive. According to the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, the public prosecutor's office in Munich has opened an investigation against Andrea Tandler, daughter of the former CSU minister Gerold Tandler, at the request of the Greens in the state parliament.
Andrea Tandler had brought in the business for Emix Trading in Germany and had employed her old friend Monika Hohlmeier, MEP and daughter of Franz Josef Strauss. According to the »Süddeutsche Zeitung«, Tandler should have earned a commission of 30 to 50 million euros within a few weeks. However, not without arousing suspicion among investigators. The accusation: business tax fraud. Tandler is said to have brokered the Emix business with Bavaria through their Munich advertising agency, but to have collected the commission from a company in neighboring Grünwald that was not yet founded at the time. The trade tax there is significantly lower than in the state capital Munich. The public prosecutor's office has apparently been investigating for months, following up the flow of money and checking the taxation.
Tandler has so far left a request from SPIEGEL on the allegations unanswered; It is the presumption of innocence. In response to a request from SPIEGEL, an Emix spokesman said that they would not comment on "matters involving third-party companies." The proceedings are therefore not directed against Emix either.
The investigations against Tandler, however, again highlight the questionable mask deals of the Swiss. The Emix had hired Tandler as a lobbyist for the German market. Up to now, the trained communication designer had only managed a small advertising agency called »Pfennigturm«; Only in the days of the golden deals did she quickly set up a strategy consultancy, the "Little Penguin". What Tandler lacked in experience, she apparently made up for with her contacts. She had been friends with Hohlmeier for decades, a contact that she used profitably in spring 2020.
It is true that Hohlmeier does not want to have earned any money in the Emix business himself. However, she contacted both Bavaria's then Minister of Health Melanie Huml (CSU) and Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) and let them know that there was a company that could deliver quickly in the emergency at the time. Then Tandler took over the direct exchange with Spahn, also communicated with him about prices and quantities.
Initially, Bayern bought masks at a unit price of 8.90 euros.
Then NRW for 9.90 euros - apparently after a contact between Huml and NRW Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann.
Finally, the federal government, which paid an average of 5.58 euros.
One of the still unsolved puzzles is why Spahn's ministry ordered such exorbitant quantities of goods from the hitherto inexperienced Emix in the following months.
It ordered for 967 million euros and ended up actually purchasing equipment for 712.5 million euros.
Particularly noticeable: the Ministry of Health concluded deals with Emix at a unit price of around EUR 5.40 even after it had already been flooded with masks for EUR 4.50 in a public bidding process and had therefore broken off this process.
In addition, Emix was often unable to keep its promises to deliver in the best quality and faster than others.
The company in North Rhine-Westphalia had initially promised masks from the quality manufacturer 3M, but then switched to the alleged FFP-2 masks from an Egyptian manufacturer and ended up delivering Chinese masks with the China standard KN95.
The federal government was also supplied with masks from China, the quality was sometimes dubious.
All of this might have gone under in the chaos of early mask procurement, had the Emix bosses not bought two Bentleys and a Ferrari from winning and thus attracted attention.
In interviews, they always defended business as correct and clean.
Tandler, on the other hand, also preferred not to answer questions from SPIEGEL in the past.