After being sentenced to more than eight years in prison, the-ex-architect Hanno Berger is going to the Federal Court of Justice. After the verdict of the Wiesbaden Regional Court, an appeal was filed on the same day, his lawyer Jürgen Graf told the German Press Agency. Graf, who used to be a BGH judge himself and most recently deputy chairman of the 1st Criminal Senate, also represents Berger in the appeal against the-Ex ruling of the Bonn Regional Court in December at the BGH in Karlsruhe. Graf is considered a specialist in revisions.
Berger was sentenced on Tuesday in Wiesbaden in the billion-dollar-Ex tax scandal to a prison sentence of eight years and three months for tax evasion in three cases. In addition, proceeds of almost 1.1 million euros are to be confiscated from Berger's assets.
Damage of 113 million euros
The verdict is not yet final. The Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office had accused Berger of having participated in share deals from 2006 to 2008, which led to unjustified tax refunds of 113 million euros.
The Bonn Regional Court imposed a prison sentence of eight years on Berger. At that time, according to the court, it was about a tax loss of 276 million euros. The two judgments can subsequently be offset against a total penalty. Then Berger faces up to 15 years in prison. For this to happen, however, the judgments must be final.
Berger is considered the architect and driving force behind the-ex deals, with which banks and investors cheated the state out of an estimated at least ten billion euros. Around the dividend record date, shares with ("") and without ("ex") dividend entitlement were shifted back and forth between several participants. At the end of the confusion, tax offices reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid at all. In 2012, the tax loophole was closed. For a long time, it was unclear whether-ex transactions were illegal. In 2021, the Federal Court of Justice then assessed it as tax evasion.