Cum-Ex: Former Macquarie banker in court docket | EUROtoday

A former worker of the Australian financial institution Macquarie should reply to a German prison court docket from May 21 for his involvement in unlawful cum-ex transactions. Just a few days in the past, the Bonn regional court docket permitted expenses of tried critical tax evasion in opposition to the accused. According to a justice spokesman, the prison proceedings are scheduled to final 13 days till mid-July.

The Cologne public prosecutor’s workplace filed expenses in opposition to the previous worker of Macquarie’s Munich department in December 2025. The banker is claimed to be liable for cum-ex buying and selling throughout the dividend season in 2011. As the district court docket additional introduced, a number of American pension funds ought to profit from the a number of refunds of a capital positive aspects tax that may solely be credited as soon as. The Federal Central Tax Office had a complete of six functions with which the tax authorities meant to pay out a complete of round 319 million euros. But that did not occur, so the accused solely has to reply for tried tax evasion earlier than the ninth Grand Criminal Chamber, chaired by Judge Frederik Glasner.

This is the primary time {that a} high-ranking worker of one of many massive worldwide funding banks that was additionally concerned in organized tax evasion has appeared earlier than the Bonn court docket. Houses like Merrill Lynch and Macquarie offered the borrowed capital, with out which buying and selling in shares of German DAX corporations with a dividend quantity within the billions wouldn’t have been potential. According to investigators, Macquarie can be stated to have acted as a brief vendor within the retail chains by means of a subsidiary that dealt with securities buying and selling.

Macquarie is claimed to have been one of many first banks to have paid again cum-ex earnings of 100 million euros to the tax authorities in 2016 and to have accepted a high quality from the general public prosecutor’s workplace. According to stories, nonetheless, these had been earlier cum-ex allegations than 2011. In 2024, the Sydney-based banking group introduced that it had put aside provisions for German dividend buying and selling transactions.

Macquarie needed to frequently improve the variety of workers affected by the investigation. While there have been nonetheless 30 in 2018, the variety of defendants doubled by 2020. The annual report from May 2024 states that, along with civil lawsuits in opposition to the financial institution, there are additionally investigations in opposition to 100 present and former Macquarie workers, most of whom not work for the corporate.

According to media stories, former CEO Nicholas Moore and his successor Shemara Wikramanayake, who has been the primary lady to move the Macquarie Group since December 2018, had been additionally within the focus of prosecutors.