“The pot is empty”
Former Wirecard boss Braun can no longer pay his lawyer
05.06.2024, 17:33
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Alfred Dierlamm is considered one of the most prominent German criminal defense lawyers. In the trial surrounding the billion-dollar Wirecard fraud, the main defendant, Markus Braun, must now do without his services. His insurance company will no longer pay his legal fees.
In the middle of the fraud trial surrounding the billion-dollar bankruptcy of the financial group Wirecard, former CEO Markus Braun has lost his main defense attorney. Attorney Alfred Dierlamm said he had resigned from his mandate in the trial before the Munich Regional Court for financial reasons. The fee budget of the responsible manager liability insurance had been used up. “The pot is empty,” said Dierlamm. “We expressly point out that the termination of the mandate is based solely on economic considerations and not on any reasons related to the matter itself,” explained Dierlamm and his law firm colleague Elena-Sabella Meier in a letter to the court.
Dierlamm is one of the most prominent German criminal defense lawyers in numerous commercial proceedings, such as the VW diesel scandal or the Cum-Ex scandal. The former millionaire Braun is now being represented in these proceedings by public defenders who are paid from the state treasury. According to her own statements, the lead lawyer was Theres Kraußlach, who had already joined Braun’s defense team before the trial began in December 2022. The court will decide who ultimately has to pay the legal costs in its verdict, which is expected next year.
The DAX group Wirecard collapsed in 2020 when it was discovered that 1.9 billion euros were missing from trust accounts in Asia. It is one of the biggest financial scandals in post-war German history. The public prosecutor’s office speaks of fraud, accounting fraud, market manipulation and breach of trust. Braun has rejected the allegations. A co-defendant who confessed is considered a key witness, a third defendant has so far remained silent. Braun and numerous other former Wirecard managers are involved in a number of criminal and civil proceedings because of the accounting scandal. A large part of the costs were borne by the insurer Chubb, with whom Wirecard, like many other companies, had taken out liability insurance for its top managers.
Due to the English term “Directors and Officers”, this is also called D&O insurance. According to information from legal circles, Chubb’s pot for various proceedings amounted to around 17 million euros. There had been litigation in several courts about this, as well as about fee claims against other D&O insurers such as Swiss Re. In his letter to the Munich Regional Court, Dierlamm referred to the fact that Braun’s lawyers had lost a legal dispute with Chubb in Frankfurt at the end of March.