(Bloomberg) -- Two former partners of German asset management company Avana Invest GmbH must stand trial next month accused of involvement in Cum-Ex trades that cost the nation €343 million ($371 million).
The pair, who can only be identified as Götz K. and Thomas U., allegedly made €16 million from their activities, according to prosecutors. The trial will start on Nov. 7, a spokesman for the Munich tribunal said on Monday. Avana Invest collapsed amid wider scrutiny of the trading practice that’s embroiled hundreds of individuals including at some of the world’s biggest banks.
The indictment, filed last year, was the first one by Munich prosecutors as part of the sprawling investigations into Cum-Ex, which exploited how dividend tax was once collected. Frankfurt and Cologne prosecutors already filed several cases and won conviction over the scheme that multiplied double tax refunds, costing Germany at least €10 billion in lost revenue.
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The two men were charged for overseeing deals in 2009 and 2010. They allegedly set up and ran the investment vehicles needed to claim the refunds via two custodian banks that handled the cash flow from the tax authorities, according to prosecutors. The court scheduled 10 days of trial.
More than 900 million shares of large German companies were traded in the deals, with a total transaction volume of several billion euros. The capital required was provided to a large extent by banks, according to prosecutors. About €220 million of the tax loss has been recovered, they’ve said.
Avana Invest was a client of Credit Agricole SA’s CACEIS Bank, which in May 2019 disclosed that that Bavarian tax authorities ordered it to repay 312 million euros and 148 million euros in interest for dividend tax that was refunded to some of its customers in 2010. The bank said at the time that it was challenging the order.
A spokeswoman for CACEIS didn’t immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
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(Updates with trade details in fifth paragraph. A previous version corrected the headline figure.)
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