DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) – In the course of the complex legal processing of cum-ex tax fraud cases in North Rhine-Westphalia, eight proceedings are in danger of becoming partially or completely statute-barred this year. This emerges from a report from State Justice Minister Benjamin Limbach (Greens) to the legal committee of the Düsseldorf state parliament. The department heads are currently trying – wherever possible and necessary – to take measures to interrupt the statute of limitations, said Limbach, referring to information from the lead Cologne public prosecutor’s office.
The Bonn Federal Central Tax Office is within the jurisdiction of the Cologne public prosecutor’s office. The Cologne authority therefore has a special nationwide role in clearing up the largest tax scandal in the Federal Republic. The state parliament’s legal committee will discuss the issue this Wednesday.
Monstrous investigative complex with numerous ramifications
Since the beginning of 2025, four new charges have been filed with the judicial authority against a total of seven accused, reported the senior Cologne public prosecutor in his submission to the Minister of Justice. In many cum-ex proceedings, huge amounts of data still have to be evaluated in order to determine possible crimes and possible involvement in the crime, without limiting the investigation early on to individual participants – for example at the dealer level. The duration of these evaluations can only be accelerated to a limited extent through technical support.
“The cum/ex crimes happened a long time ago,” said Limbach. The crimes are characterized by international connections, enormous amounts of damage, high criminal energy, a division of labor approach and a large number of actors involved. “The number of both credit institutions and defendants involved is unprecedented.”
NRW invests in education
The focus of the search measures was in 2021 and 2022. Enormous amounts of data were secured, the viewing and evaluation of which is still extremely time-consuming and personnel-intensive.
“The NRW financial administration has been supporting these investigations continuously for many years,” emphasized Limbach. A high number of investigators from the NRW financial administration are consistently involved. Both the investigation unit of the Cologne public prosecutor’s office and the North Rhine-Westphalia State Office for Combating Financial Crime have been supported with additional positions in recent years.
The Cum-Ex system
With Cum-Ex, financial players move shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement back and forth in order to get refunds for taxes that have not been paid. The peak phase of this fraud was from 2006 to 2011. According to estimates, the tax authorities lost a double-digit billion euro amount. It was only in 2021 that the Federal Court of Justice decided that cum-ex transactions should be viewed as tax evasion.
Some key figures in such stock deals have since been convicted in Germany. The prosecution is expected to drag on into the next decade. In recent years, many allegations have already become statute-barred./beg/DP/stw
