HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) – The former SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs has spoken to the Bafin about the Hamburger Warburg-Bank, which was involved in the “Cum-Ex” scandal and faced tax claims worth millions in 2016. On September 1, 2016, he called the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) and asked about the traditional bank, said former Bafin President Felix Hufeld, who was invited as a witness, on Friday in the Hamburg Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry. A few weeks later, the former spokesman for the Seeheim district and household expert called again.
The committee of inquiry wants to clarify the accusation that leading SPD politicians may be influencing the tax treatment of the Warburg Bank. The background to this is the meeting of the then Mayor of Hamburg and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz with Max Warburg and Christian Olearius in 2016 and 2017. At that time, investigations were already underway against Olearius on suspicion of serious tax evasion.
After the first In a meeting in 2016, the tax office for large companies initially waived additional tax claims of 47 million euros when the statute of limitations expired. A further 43 million euros were only requested in 2017 after the intervention of the Federal Ministry of Finance. Scholz had acknowledged the meetings in the investigative committee, but stated that he could not remember the content of the talks. However, he ruled out any influence on the tax procedure.
The Hamburg SPD MP Kahrs wanted to know how the bank was doing, said Hufeld, who last year at the urging of the then Federal Finance Minister Scholz because of of the Wirecard scandal lost his job. Like all other questioners, he told him “that we do not comment on individual supervisory measures,” said Hufeld.
Kahrs didn’t try to get information in an “inappropriate way”. “I rule out political influence on the Bafin,” emphasized the former Bafin President. In addition, it is not unusual for members of parliament, state secretaries or ministers to call in. On the other hand, he never spoke to Warburg and Olearius. The Warburg-Bank is important for Hamburg, but rather small for the Bafin.
Among other things, public prosecutors are now investigating against Kahrs because of the initial suspicion of favoritism. Kahrs may have used his influence in favor of the bank. It is certain that he met with Olearius and brokered talks with Scholz. In 2017, the SPD Hamburg said it accepted donations of 45,500 euros from the Warburg Bank and its affiliated companies, 38,000 euros of which went to the SPD district Hamburg-Mitte of the former MP Kahrs.
In “Cum Ex” transactions, financial players shifted large blocks of shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement around the dividend date in a complicated system and then had taxes reimbursed several times. For a long time it was unclear whether this was just brazen exploitation of a legal loophole or tax evasion. The Federal Court of Justice put its foot down in July 2021 and classified it as a criminal offence. According to estimates, the state lost a double-digit billion euro amount as a result of “Cum Ex”. The Warburg Bank has now had to repay 176 million euros to the Treasury, but is continuing to take legal action.
In addition to the hearing of witnesses and the hearing of an expert, the committee decided unanimously to withdraw the files from the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office To request preliminary investigations against Scholz, among other things, on suspicion of infidelity. Most recently it became known that Scholz was obviously informed about the proceedings related to “Cum-Ex”, although the public prosecutor’s office had stated in the past that he and his environment had not been informed.
Nevertheless, according to a response from the Senate to a small inquiry from the CDU parliamentary group on March 17, 2021, a lawyer for Scholz, who was candidate for chancellor at the time, contacted the public prosecutor’s office and legitimized himself as his legal representative. On April 22, he then sent a brief and demanded that the proceedings be stopped immediately. Further pleadings with the same request followed on July 5th and August 5th.
According to the Senate, the preliminary investigations that had already begun in February 2020 were finally discontinued on September 7th – three weeks before the federal elections -, “because in the opinion of the public prosecutor’s office there were no sufficient factual indications for the existence of a criminal offense” – an assessment that the public prosecutor general’s office agreed with in its appeal decision of November 29./klm/DP/he
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