Trial Zurich public prosecutor rejects accusation of bias
The Zurich public prosecutor's office has rejected the accusations of bias made against one of the prosecutors involved in the trial against Eckart Seith, who was involved in the cum-ex investigation. Seith is accused of economic espionage by the public prosecutor's office.
09.12.2024, 10:31
09.12.2024, 12:05
SDA
The representative of the public prosecutor's office rejected accusations of bias against a former prosecutor in charge of the case. Furthermore, Seith could not invoke the protective rights to which whistleblowers are entitled. "Seith is not a whistleblower, he bought documents from the other party as a lawyer," said the public prosecutor.
At the beginning of the trial, Seith's defense lawyer filed a motion to dismiss the case. He based the motion on the alleged bias of a public prosecutor involved in the proceedings, among other things.
Seith is charged with economic espionage and offenses against the Banking Act because he obtained internal documents from Bank J. Safra Sarasin and passed them on to German investigators. Two bank employees are also charged.
Billions in losses through tax fraud
The documents were instrumental in clearing up the cum-ex scandal. The German state suffered billions in losses as a result of cum-ex transactions. Around the dividend record date, investors shifted shares with ("cum") and without ("ex") dividend entitlement back and forth between several parties. In the end, it was no longer clear to the tax authorities who actually owned the shares. As a result, German tax offices refunded withholding tax that had never been paid.
The Swiss bank J. Safra Sarasin had also sold such financial products to its clients. One of Sarasin's clients was the German drugstore king Erwin Müller. He lost millions when the Sarasin fund collapsed. He then accused the bank of having given him bad advice and, with the help of lawyer Eckart Seith and internal bank documents from Switzerland, sued the bank for compensation.
The Ulm Regional Court finally ruled in his favor. It sentenced the bank to pay damages of 45 million euros in 2017.
