Capital investments as modified fastball systems – tax liability despite total loss

– What are the liability risks for investors, advisors and intermediaries?   German investors lose up to more than 40 billion euros annually on capital investments. Time and again, public prosecutors or insolvency administrators are interested in whether the calculation of returns or the practices in balance sheets and accounting have been all too creative […]

Loss of purchasing power, demographics and low interest rates destroy supply dreams

“The safest thing about the state pension is the pension gap.” (André Kostolany) If we compare the prospects of past and present pensioners with those of future generations of pensioners, we find that over the decades the legislator has roughly halved the provision via the German Pension Insurance Federation (DRV) in relation to the last […]

Severance pay and other alternatives to occupational pension schemes (bAV)

– Opportunities for employers and employees to optimize pension provision –   Due to the low interest rates on the capital markets, it will in many cases no longer be possible to achieve positive real returns in the traditional external implementation channels of occupational pension schemes in accordance with the German Company Pensions Act (BetrAVG). […]

Return knowledge for lawyers

Among lawyers, the old adage still applies: “iudex non calculat”. But a few days ago, an article1 appeared in the business section of the FAZ, which, due to the headline, did not reveal the explosive nature of the author’s comments on the subject of yields. In everyday life we often use terms about whose meaning […]

Revocation of credit-financed investments

New ruling of the Federal Court of Justice facilitates the release from loan debts It is part of everyday life at credit institutions to enable customers to make larger investments by providing them with a large part of the money required for an investment in the form of a loan. As a rule, these are […]

Euro rescue leads to planned debts

“Under communism, banks are nationalized and then go bust, under capitalism, banks go bust and then are nationalized.”(Christine Lagarde) First German subprime crisis due to junk real estate and interest rate bets Since the end of the 1980s, not only the legal predecessor group of Hypo Real Estate Holding AG (HRE) has been piling up […]

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 […]

Muzzle on billion-dollar financial fraud under BaFin supervision

The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) celebrates a decision of the Administrative Court of Minden (decision of 17.12.2010, ref. 10 L 690/10) as a triumph – however, it is probably rather an admission of hopeless overstrain? Defrauded investors should not under any circumstances hope for financial supervision – it protects the existence of financial institutions, […]

Black money and the consequences

Tax evaders face prison sentences starting at 50,000 euros Let’s not kid ourselves: Hunting and guns are popular men’s toys, and that’s where a lot of black money is spent by our customers, because they can’t put it into the regular economic cycle or – far more often – because the wives aren’t allowed to […]

Distribution of closed-end investments

The liability risks of the sales department in this area already differ according to the customer (investor-oriented advice), the capital investment (object-oriented advice) or the risk involved (advice after object examination and risk analysis). In addition, a plethora of potential pitfalls to be aware of.   The latest rulings of the Federal Court of Justice […]