Germany Former senior public prosecutor Brorhilker: "Cum-Ex continues"
Former cum-ex chief investigator Anne Brorhilker is firmly convinced that tax fraud with illegal share transactions is still widespread in the financial world. She was Germany's most important investigator in the cum-ex scandal.
02.01.2025, 06:28
SDA
"Cum-Ex continues - even long after the law was changed in 2012," the former senior public prosecutor and current managing director of the Bürgerbewegung Finanzwende told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Cum-ex deals, which had their heyday between 2006 and 2011, are considered the biggest tax theft in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. Banks and other investors staged a confusion game with shares around the dividend record date. In the end, they received tax refunds from tax offices that they had not even paid. The state lost an estimated ten billion euros, and in 2012 politicians reacted by changing the law.
"The deals are definitely still possible"
However, according to Brorhilker, the tax theft continued afterwards. As an example, she cites a foundation set up by suspected criminals that was used for cum-ex deals in 2016. She believes there is a high probability that cum-ex transactions and similar cum-cum deals are still being carried out today.
"It is always said that the transactions are now technically impossible because the regulations have been changed," said Brorhilker, who was responsible for cum-ex cases at the Cologne public prosecutor's office from 2013 to spring 2024. But the perpetrators had carried out cum-ex deals throughout Europe and therefore also in countries with different regulations and systems than in Germany. "The perpetrators may have to handle the deals slightly differently, but they are definitely still possible."
The risk for banks of being discovered in criminal activities is still very low, said Brorhilker. "The banks know: No one can prove it to us. We have a control deficit, no matter what rules we put in place."
