The Cum-Ex scandal involved not only actors from the financial world. Over time, more and more possible involvements of lawyers and politicians came to light.
Politically particularly sensitive is the alleged involvement of prominent politicians, above all current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in the so-called “Hamburg Warburg affair”:
In the past, the Hamburg-based private bank M. M. Warburg & CO was significantly involved in Cum-Ex transactions.
In 2021, the Federal Court of Justice ordered the bank to repay more than 176 million euros to the state treasury.
Co-owner of the bank Christian Olearius is currently facing charges of serious tax evasion before the Bonn Regional Court for this reason; the bank’s former general representative has already been sentenced to five and a half years’ imprisonment.
The allegations of possible political influence in this matter are essentially as follows:
In February 2020, the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and the political magazine Panorama published their research on the statute of limitations for Cum-Ex reclaims.
According to these reports, the Hamburg tax office had in 2016 reclaimed 47 million euros from M. M. Warburg & CO bank, which originated from illegal Cum-Ex transactions.
In 2016 and 2017, several conversations and personal meetings are said to have taken place between Scholz, who was then Hamburg’s First Mayor, and Olearius.
These were allegedly arranged by the then SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs.
Olearius is said to have advocated in writing in a position paper for waiving enforcement of the reclaim demands against Warburg Bank.
Scholz is said to have advised Olearius in the conversations not to submit this position paper to the Hamburg tax office, but to send it directly to Peter Tschentscher, then Hamburg’s Finance Senator and today Scholz’s successor as Hamburg’s First Mayor.
Evidence of these meetings and their content was found in Olearius’s diary entries and in chats and emails of a Hamburg tax official.
Shortly thereafter, the Hamburg tax office waived the reclaims and allowed the repayment claims against Warburg Bank to expire. The city of Hamburg thereby lost 47 million euros.
Before the parliamentary committee of inquiry, Scholz initially denied having met with Olearius—later he changed his statement, but stated that he could not recall substantive details of the meetings.
The Hamburg Parliament subsequently established a separate Hamburg committee of inquiry in October 2020, which specifically deals with the waiver of tax claims to the benefit of Warburg Bank.
In 2022, Tschentscher had to testify before this committee of inquiry; the focus was on what influence he may have had as Finance Senator at the time on the expiration of the reclaim demands.
According to the current state of affairs, no legal involvement in the Cum-Ex matter can be proven against Olaf Scholz.
However, this could change if further details about the Chancellor’s possible involvement come to light in the current criminal proceedings against Olearius.
Furthermore, the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag is currently engaged in filing a lawsuit before the Federal Constitutional Court to establish another parliamentary committee of inquiry.
The investigation of the Warburg affair is therefore far from concluded—it remains to be seen what further investigations will bring to light.
Should you have further questions or be accused in criminal proceedings or tax proceedings (tax criminal proceedings), please feel free to contact us.