A German banker has been sentenced for "cum-ex" transactions

For the first time, a German banker has been sentenced to imprisonment for so-called "cum-ex" transactions at the expense of taxpayers. The Bonn Regional Court imposed a prison sentence of five years and six months on the former general agent of the Hamburg Warburg Bank for tax evasion in five cases. According to a court spokeswoman, two months of the sentence are already enforced because the proceedings had dragged on over a long period of time. The judgment is not yet final. After the judgment, the Warburg-Bank stated that the decision would not come as a surprise after the March 2020 stipulations. "The primary responsibility of the domestic custodian banks and the initiators of the transactions is not sufficiently taken into account," she said. "It is questionable whether the judgment will stand up to a possible revision in view of the numerous rejected bias requests and rejected requests for evidence." The bank had already paid tax claims in connection with the "Cum-Ex" scandal last year, but always emphasized that the additional claims were unjustified. They are "not to be understood as an admission of guilt". The money house always emphasized that it had adhered to the legal rules in all transactions. In March 2020 in Bonn, the verdict in the very first criminal case concerning the controversial "Cum-Ex" deals had already been passed. The district court sentenced two British stock traders to suspended prison sentences. On June 15, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) wants to negotiate the appeal. Until the first judgment, it was unclear whether "cum-ex" transactions are only inadmissible under tax law or whether they are also punishable by law. The German state suffered billions in damage. Investors can have a once-paid capital gains tax on stock dividends reimbursed several times with the help of banks. To this end, they moved shares with - that is, cum - and without - ex - dividend entitlement to one another around the cut-off date for the dividend payment. The cases had spread widely, so banks and law firms are constantly being searched.