2023-09-21 08:30:51
The accusations of the prosecutors in the cum-ex criminal trial against Christian Olearius at the Bonn Regional Court have been pronounced. For this reason alone, the Warburg banker seemed noticeably more relaxed on the second day of the criminal proceedings on Wednesday, chatting animatedly with his defense lawyers Klaus Landry and Peter Gauweiler before the start of the trial. The chair that Olearius was desperately trying to hold on to at the start of the trial on Monday stands unnoticed next to him.
The defendant knows that today is the day on which his experienced lawyers will launch legal attacks: against the Cologne public prosecutor’s office, its main department head Anne Brorhilker, who is still not present in the trial, and the judicial authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Olearius was wrongly accused of serious tax evasion, defense lawyer Klaus Landry began his presentation. His client knew nothing about the use of short selling. “He has never and would never have applied for the crediting or even reimbursement of capital gains tax that had not previously been withheld and paid.” The Hamburg lawyer has known the co-owner of the private bank MM Warburg for decades, they live in the same district of Hamburg and were on the board of trustees together Joachim Herz Foundation active.
Olearius always pointed out to him that the transactions had been fully examined in the relevant specialist departments of the bank as well as legally and tax-wise and found to be good, Landry emphasized in court. Olearius relied on this – “I think it is absolutely credible and believable,” said his defense lawyer.
Accusation: 14 cases of particularly serious tax evasion
Prosecutors accuse Olearius of 14 cases of particularly serious tax evasion between 2006 and 2020. His false statements from 2016 to 2019 take up particular space in the indictment. Olearius wanted to avoid high tax back payments for his house. To do this, he enlisted the then SPD politician Johannes Kahrs and the former Hamburg Senator for the Interior Alfons Pawelczyk for his purposes. In the fall of 2016 and 2017, there were several meetings with Olaf Scholz, the then First Mayor of the Hanseatic city, in the Hamburg City Hall. “It was about averting the threat of tax refund notices by putting pressure on the decision-makers,” say the prosecutors. Landry described the outcome of the investigation as “manipulative and factual.” The descriptions of the alleged actions of other accused and already convicted people are intended to create the impression that Olearius must have shared their knowledge in some way.
In addition, Landry, like Gauweiler later, complained about the unforgivable violation of the presumption of innocence, which Olearius, like every defendant, could rely on. The background is the first verdict confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice in a cum-ex criminal trial against two British stock market traders, where Olearius was found guilty of being an accomplice of serious tax evasion. “The benefit of the doubt for the defendant is suspended for him,” Landry said. The courts and investigative authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia had reduced Olearius to a mere object. Because his diaries found their way from the evidence room into the media for reasons that are still unclear, his client was irreparably prejudiced in public. “The chamber can and must send a clear stop signal here.”
“The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is accusing people of crimes that it itself committed”
Gauweiler first referred to the long duration of the investigation against Olearius, which lasted almost eight years. This was a personally difficult time for the defendant, and for the private bank – in which Olearius has a 40 percent stake – it meant a series of economically unpleasant decisions. The Munich lawyer is of the opinion that the accusation against Olearius lacks any credibility. “The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is accusing people of crimes that it itself committed.”
Gauweiler was referring to the billion-dollar cum-ex transactions of the former WestLB, which have not yet been prosecuted. Instead, the investigators focused on the Warburg Bank, its management and employees in isolation. The public prosecutor’s investigation against Olearius was “one-sided, biased and in violation of the constitutional principle of fairness,” said Gauweiler himself, accusing him.
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The defense attorneys were particularly angry about public statements made by Brorhilker on a television program that they described as “litigation PR.” Gauweiler concluded his hour-long statement with another dig at WestLB and its legal successor Portigon. In contrast to them, the owners of the Warburg Bank paid for the tax damages they were accused of on their own initiative and out of their own pockets with interest and made up for it. The proceedings will continue next Monday.
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