BONN, Germany (Reuters) – Hanno Berger, a lawyer described as the mastermind of one of Germany’s biggest tax evasion cases in more than 60 years, has been found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison at the outcome of a historic trial.
The 72-year-old former German tax inspector, turned prominent lawyer and tax adviser, was convicted in the so-called ‘cum-ex’ dividend fraud case which some German experts say cost around £10 billion euros to taxpayers.
The court ordered him to repay more than 13 million euros.
Germany and Denmark are carrying out cross-border investigations into the “cum-ex” tax avoidance practice, which was based on a mechanism of high-frequency purchase and resale of shares by banks and investment companies aimed at to simulate the existence of a large number of investors who can each benefit from the advantageous tax provisions on dividends.
Hanno Berger’s sentencing is the harshest to date by German judges, after about eight years of investigations that authorities say have involved some 1,500 suspects and 100 banks on four continents
In their plea in court in Bonn last week, prosecutors accused Hanno Berger of orchestrating a fraud scheme that cost German taxpayers 278 million euros
Hanno Berger has also been charged separately by Frankfurt prosecutors with another alleged ‘cum-ex’ tax fraud, valued at 113 million euros, and faces a second trial in the German city of Wiesbaden next year.
(Reporting Matthias Inverardi and Marta Orosz; written by Kirstin Ridley; French version Augustin Turpin, editing by Kate Entringer)
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