It was one of those documents that afforded a rare glimpse behind the scenes of power. Christian Olearius, once at the head of Hamburg’s Warburg Bank, noted in his diary how he met the then Mayor of Hamburg and today’s Federal Chancellor several times in 2016 and 2017 Olaf Scholz had met. It was about what has now made history as a cum-ex scandal: the traditional money house feared having to repay the tax office more than 100 million euros that had been unlawfully refunded capital gains tax. And therefore went to the politicians to prevent this. The Southgerman newspaper had on September 4, 2020 quoted verbatim from the diary, but Olearius obtained an injunction from the Hamburg judiciary. But now the ban is out of the world: The Federal Court of Justice has it Süddeutsche Zeitung fully justified this Tuesday. Verbatim quotations from the notes may be reproduced.
