Tax fraud
Judgment against CUM-EX crown witness: Administrators are revision
A lawyer was a driving force in the largest tax fraud in the Federal Republic. He later unpacked and regretted his actions. How hard should it be punished?
According to the probation judgment against a lead actor of the CUM-Ex tax fraud, the public prosecutor does not give up. The Cologne public prosecutor said. This does not become final.
On Tuesday, the Bonn district court sentenced the 53-year-old lawyer Kai-Uwe Steck to a probation penalty of one year and ten months and to pay 23.6 million euros. He has already paid eleven million from the sum. According to the judgment, he was responsible for tax fraud from 2007 to 2011, which led to tax damage of 428 million euros.
Steck had been a central figure and driving force at Cum-Ex. In 2016 he changed sides and became key witness of the indictment. His extensive statements made the processing and punishment of other criminals significantly forward, as the court had been. This flowed into the judgment. The Bonn district court had sentenced his compagnon and cum-ex offender Hanno Berger to eight years in prison in 2022. He sits in prison.
In the Steck, the public prosecutor had asked for a prison sentence of three years and eight months – so the prosecutors also wanted to send stuck behind bars. The defense had requested a procedural setting. After the verdict, Steck’s defense had indicated to refrain from going to the next instance – it was relieved that the court had only pronounced a suspended sentence.
The public prosecutor sees it differently, as is clear with the revision that has now become known. “In particular, the amount of the penalty imposed deviates from the application of the public prosecutor, so that a detailed examination of the written reasons for the judgment is necessary,” said the Cologne law enforcement authority.
At CUM-EX, financial actors postponed stocks with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement back and forth in order to receive unpaid taxes. A “perverted system”, as the Bonn court called it. The high phase of this fraud was from 2006 to 2011. According to estimates, the tax authorities lost a double-digit billion-euro amount.
Steck was formerly a law firm of the Cum-Ex Architect Berger. While Berger was convinced of the legality of his actions until the very end, Steck was poured and ruefully.
dpa
Source: Stern
