Tax fraud
Cum-ex crowning sentenced to probation sentence
Cum-Ex was an incredible billion-in fraud, and financial actors classified the general public by billions for years. Now there was a judgment against one of the central actors.
The Bonn district court condemned one of the central actors when dealing with the CUM-Ex tax fraud. Due to the particularly severe tax fraud, the lawyer Kai-Uwe Steck (53) was imposed in five cases in five cases, a prison sentence of one year and ten months, which was suspended for probation. The court also ordered the confiscation of around 24 million euros.
According to the court, the acts took place in the period 2007 to 2011. “The accused took part in the tax damage of almost half a billion euros,” said presiding judge Sebastian Hausen (file number 62 KLS 1/24).
With a view to the largest tax scandal in the Federal Republic, the judge said about the accused Steck: “He was a central figure.” The public prosecutor had pleaded for a prison sentence of three years and eight months and the defense called for a procedural attitude.
Steck was formerly a law firm of the so-called cum-ex architect Hanno Berger. While Berger was convinced of the legality of his actions until the very end, Steck was poured, cooperated with the public prosecutor and acted as a key witness.
His role as a key witness had a mitigating effect on the judgment, as was evident from the judges’ statements. Steck’s former Compagnon Berger was sentenced to a prison sentence of eight years by the Bonn district court in 2022.
In “Cum-Ex”, financial actors shift shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement back and forth in order to receive unpaid taxes. The high phase of this fraud was from 2006 to 2011. According to estimates, the tax authorities lost a double-digit billion-euro amount.
dpa
Source: Stern
