Bank liability for investor damage or investor contribution to the subprime crisis

When selling, advising or brokering certificates and derivatives, special information is required to avoid liability towards investors. Credit institutions sold “guarantee” certificates and similar constructs to bank customers, for example the Lehman Brothers Bank, as a safe investment: numerous liability traps await bank and savings bank advisors.   I. Consultant incompetence and conditions trap Certificates […]

Certificates and derivatives: Investors’ contribution to losses in the subprime crisis

Renowned credit institutions sold “guarantee” certificates and similar constructs, for example those of Lehman Brothers Bank, to gullible bank customers as safe investments: Bank and savings bank advisors are thus today often liable for the reversal. The advisors regularly did not read the certificate conditions or sales brochures, which can be up to 200 pages […]

Retirement planning with annuity purchase instead of life insurance or sovereign wealth funds with cash cover

– How the state can ensure the efficiency of retirement planning for the middle class –   After 31 years of work, average earners will only receive a basic pension (social welfare level, with up to less than 758 euros per month) – low earners would have to work 63 years in social security for […]

Books / Technical articles

Publications – Technical papers Fiala/Schramm, Insolvency risk of British life insurers when relocating to Ireland, ExpertenReport, issue 7/2019, pages 60-62 Fiala/Schramm, When are insurers no longer obliged to pay benefits or can reduce benefits?Expert Report, issue 3/2019, pages 56-58 Fiala/Schramm, No insurance coverage in case of refusal to pay protection money, ExpertenReport, issue 11/2018. Pages […]

Asset Management

Those who want to know that their private assets, those of a foundation or even of an institution are in good hands and who themselves have little understanding of capital preservationand protection, can assign this task to a so-called asset manager. Asset management, a professional title that is largely unprotectedorunregulated in Germany, defines a service […]

Pre-programmed old-age poverty despite additional private provision by those with compulsory insurance

– Why average earners only have prospects of receiving a basic security pension –   Anyone who is employed as a worker with a continuous income until the age of 67 can expect to receive a net pension amounting to 50% of their last net income when they retire in the not too distant future. […]

Sharia protects against creditors, also in inheritance law and family law claims

– Basic foreign values (ordre public) protect against access to assets – German courts also recognise Sharia law and, where applicable, apply it compulsorily if it does not contradict fundamental German legal concepts – especially the constitution. Conversely, German law is not applied abroad, even if it is fundamentally valid, if it contradicts the fundamental […]

Invalidity of contracts, confiscation of assets and arrest in case of breach of penalties

Sanctions have been in fashion for centuries, and are being broken. The widow Barbe-Nicole Clicquot-Ponsardin, in reaction to Napoleon’s Russian campaign, was concerned with the embargo imposed by the Russian Tsar on French products in 1812. The widow hired a Dutch ship, had it loaded with over 10,000 bottles of the 1811 vintage, and was […]

Sanctions and their effects, part 1

Sanctions have been in fashion for centuries, and are being broken. The widow Barbe-Nicole Clicquot-Ponsardin, in reaction to Napoleon’s Russian campaign, was concerned with the embargo that the Russian Tsar had imposed on French products in 1812. The widow hired a Dutch ship, had it loaded with over 10,000 bottles of the 1811 vintage, and […]

Pension: once “the yellow of the egg” – today expropriated

Pre-programmed old-age poverty despite additional private provision by those with compulsory insurance: Which is why even average earners have the best prospects of a basic pension.   Anyone who is employed as an employee until the age of 67 with a continuous income can expect to receive a net pension amounting to 50 percent of […]