Signa bankruptcy Investor Benko convicted again - acquittal for wife Nathalie
The Austrian ex-billionaire René Benko has been sentenced for the second time for harming his creditors. The Innsbruck Regional Court imposed a suspended sentence of 15 months on the founder of the Signa real estate and trading empire.
10.12.2025, 17:40
10.12.2025, 18:03
SDA
His wife Nathalie Benko, who was also charged, was acquitted. She was also involved in the proceedings.
The court considered it to be only partially proven that René Benko had withdrawn valuable watches from the grasp of his creditors. In Austria, fraudulent crida is punishable by up to ten years in prison, depending on the amount of damage.
René Benko had already been sentenced to two years in prison for the same offense in October. As soon as this first judgement becomes final, the two sentences will be combined to form a single sentence. However, the two sentences will not simply be added together.
Defense spoke of "hocus pocus"
At the beginning of the trial, the defense tried to tear the charges apart. According to the investor's lawyer, Norbert Wess, the prosecution's accusation was unsubstantiated and basically "mumbo-jumbo". The investigation was "incredibly one-sided", said Nathalie Benko's lawyer, Michael Hohenauer. There were plausible explanations for the events.
The public prosecutor's office, on the other hand, had stated that the couple had deposited the money and eleven expensive watches in a safe around the time of Benko's insolvency as sole traders. The purchase of the safe, which was placed with relatives of the wife, had been organized by 42-year-old Nathalie Benko.
She had therefore contributed to the crime and thus to the damage to the creditors, the prosecution said. A former security employee of the Benkos had told the investigators about the safe.
The two proceedings are only a small part of the allegations being investigated by the Vienna Commercial and Corruption Prosecutor's Office (WKStA). Further charges are considered certain.
The holding company of the convoluted real estate and retail group Signa slipped into insolvency in November 2023. This also affected the Globus department store in Switzerland, among others. Benko has been in custody since January 2025.
