Ex-Macquarie banker charged over major German tax scam
Berlin | German prosecutors charged a banker who worked at Macquarie Group over the Cum-Ex tax scandal, the first indictment in the affair targeting staff at a top international investment bank.
Prosecutors based in Cologne filed the charge at a Bonn court over trades at the lender that took place before 2012, according to people familiar with the matter. Macquarie has previously said that as many as 100 people were swept up in the probe.
A spokesman for the Bonn court confirmed the new indictment but declined to disclose the name of the accused or the bank involved. Macquarie didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Cum-Ex was a controversial trading strategy designed to obtain duplicate refunds by taking advantage of how dividend taxes were collected. Germany stopped the practice in 2012 and is now probing about 1800 suspects from across the global financial industry. More than 20 people have been convicted in German courts for their part in Cum-Ex, one of Europe’s biggest tax scandals.
Bankers at Macquarie’s London office were central to Cum-Ex deals and have been in prosecutors’ cross-hairs for years. In the fallout from the scandal the lender has already settled two separate matters involving German dividend trades between 2006 and 2009. The bank paid €100 million ($177 million) to German authorities as part of this agreement.
The number of suspects in the German Cum-Ex probes linked to Macquarie has increased. In 2018, the Sydney-based company said about 30 staffers were targeted. In 2020, the lender disclosed that the number had climbed to 100, most of whom are no longer at Macquarie. In a 2024 company report, the bank reiterated that number, adding that the lender has provided for financial risks out of the case.
Charges against Macquarie bankers have been expected for years but Cologne prosecutors, which are investigating suspects in 130 different probes, repeatedly delayed decisions.
The pandemic slowed law enforcement on multiple fronts, including reduced court capacity. After the once-top Cum-Ex prosecutor Anne Brorhilker left the agency last year, the flow of charges diminished even further.
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