A fatal nitrogen accident, a series of thefts and a long-hidden fraud: For the metal company Aurubis, the 2022/23 financial year was an “annus horribilis” – with consequences now also for the executive suite.
After millions in damages due to fraud and theft at Hamburg-based Aurubis AG went undetected for a long time, CEO Roland Harings and two other board members have to leave the company early. The copper and recycling specialist announced this on Tuesday after a meeting of the supervisory board. “The three board members are taking into account the special challenges faced by Aurubis in the past financial year, particularly with regard to the serious cases of fraud and theft at the Hamburg plant and incidents in the area of occupational safety.” Last year, three employees died in a nitrogen leak at Aurubis.
The cases of theft and fraud remained undetected for a long time. This raised doubts among the members of the control committee about the risk management of the company management. A law firm then investigated the board’s responsibility in connection with the crimes on behalf of the supervisory board. Harings, whose contract actually ran until mid-2027, was still confident in mid-December “that the investigations show that we have managed the company with all due care and responsibility.” The 60-year-old manager is now leaving Aurubis at the end of September.
Production director Heiko Arnold is leaving on February 29th, and financial director Rainer Verhoeven is stepping down from his position on June 30th. Only board member Inge Hofkens (53), who was only appointed at the beginning of 2023 and is responsible for the emerging recycling business, will retain her board mandate.
Aurubis was the victim of criminals in several cases. The bottom line is that in December, when presenting the annual results for 2022/23 (September 30), the company spoke of a metal shortage of 169 million euros. The balance sheet for the past financial year was also overshadowed by a fatal chemical accident. Nitrogen had escaped; three men aged 24, 49 and 53 died as a result.
A large-scale fraud was particularly painful for the company financially. This was noticed during regular checks of the metal inventory. There were significant deviations from the target inventory as well as deviations in special samples of certain recycling deliveries. Aurubis assumes that manipulated samples with high levels of valuable metals were delivered, but that the deliveries then contained significantly less valuable metals – which ultimately led to excessive invoices being paid.
Source: Stern
