BUWOG affair

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The BUWOG affair includes possible breach of trust, illegal agreements and commission payments in connection with the privatization of 60,000 federal apartments of Bauen und Wohnen GmbH ( BUWOG ) by the then Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser (FPÖ). According to the Green Party MP Moser, the Republic of Austria is said to have lost up to one billion euros as a result.

Grasser claims that he did not know anything about the payments. A former employee of Grasser described the deal as a "game that was agreed upon". Grasser is charged with abuse of authority and violation of official secrecy .

trigger

The affair accidentally came to light in September 2009. During investigations into the bankruptcy of Constantia Privatbank (CPB), auditors came across an unusual commission payment to the PR advisor Peter Hochegger and his business partner, the lobbyist and ex- FPÖ politician Walter Meischberger . The two acquaintances of Grassers filed a voluntary report and thus brought extremely dubious business practices to light.

Court of Auditors

Quote RH partial report: A sale would be economical if the interest savings resulting from the lower national debt were higher than the loss of income of the state from the profits transferred from its housing associations. Mag. Grasser appeals to this requirement before the parliamentary corruption investigation committee, but it does not take into account capital preservation. Quote Wiener Zeitung: Immofinanz had made a profit of 1.2 billion euros through the Buwog purchase, which is more than a hundred times the sum that Hochegger received, said Petrikovics.

Suspicion of infidelity in the selection of the advisory investment bank

Already in 2002 there are said to have been irregularities in the selection of the investment bank to advise on the sale. A bank is being sought to handle the Buwog privatization. Michael Ramprecht was responsible for the selection of the investment bank on the part of the ministry. This claims that Lehman Brothers (the bank that spectacularly collapsed in 2008) received the contract in 2002, although with a consulting fee of EUR 10.2 million it was significantly more expensive than the rival CA IB (now UniCredit ). According to Ramprecht, the order was placed at the express request of Grasser, whose close friend Karlheinz Muhr worked as a consultant for Lehman. Muhr is said to have received over 400,000 euros from Lehman for this.

Suspicion of illegal collusion in the sales process

In 2003 federal apartments will be advertised. In the following year, the bidding consortium , consisting of RLB OÖ , Wiener Städtische and Immofinanz, won with a bid of 961.2 million euros. This corresponds to a price of only € 16,020 per apartment or € 594 per square meter. In the originally planned sale to tenants, the required average sales price was € 1,132 per square meter. The highest bidder CA Immo (960 million euros) was surprisingly outbid by just 1.19 million euros (just over 0.1%). Only after the then Carinthian governor Jörg Haider had surprisingly waived the right of first refusal of the Villach housing company ESG included in the package, the bidder consortium for Immofinanz was just ahead. Without ESG, CA Immo would have been 20 million euros ahead of Immofinanz with its offer of 747 million euros. Grasser's ex-head of cabinet Heinrich Traumüller assumes that he has passed on inside information about the award procedure, in particular the price and the amount of the competition from CA Immo via Hochegger, to the then head of Immofinanz Karl Petrikovics . According to media reports in spring 2012, the public prosecutor's office also assumed that Grasser had knowledge of the Immofinanz requirement.

Immofinanz paid Hochegger 9.6 million euros (one percent of the purchase price) for brokering activities that were smuggled past Finanz via the Cypriot mailbox company Astropolis . Approx. Hochegger passed 7.7 million euros on to Meischberger. This in turn is supposed to transfer part of the commission through a complex network of mailbox companies and current accounts in the US state of Delaware to Liechtenstein and the like. a. to his close friend at the time, Grasser (whose best man he was). In the principality, the funds are said to have been divided into several accounts. Grasser and Plech deny that two accounts are assigned to them. Meischberger argued the allocation of the funds so that it was his personal financial planning.

Grasser had Meischberger's agency ZehnVierzig pay for a vacation trip to the Seychelles in 2004 . The costs are said to have been reimbursed to Meischberger by Grasser after the trip. The trip took place just eight weeks before the controversial sale of BUWOG to the Immofinanz consortium. Grasser stated that he paid for the trip himself. The booking was only made through Meischberger, as he received special conditions. After more than six years, Meischberger can no longer remember exactly how Grasser gave him the money: “He either gave it to me in cash or transferred it to me… I no longer know whether he gave it to me in cash. … Perhaps I got a cheaper price… It may be that… I called there for a special arrangement. ”In this connection, the SPÖ federal manager Günther Kräuter demanded the immediate opening of Gasser's accounts.

Illegal creation of the privatization law

In March 2012 it became known that the law specifically enacted for the Buwog sale was unconstitutional. According to legal experts, the Federal Council was illegally circumvented, although the change in the law resulted in tax losses for the states and municipalities. The successful consortium around Immofinanz saved around 30 million euros in real estate transfer tax alone .

Prosecutor's investigation

Initial investigations into the BUWOG case were slow. The responsible public prosecutor, Norbert Haslhofer, who, according to media reports, carried out the investigations with full vigor and in some cases top secret, surprisingly resigned his office on December 15, 2009. A spokesman for the public prosecutor said: "At his own request, according to a long-term career change planned, Haslhofer will take over a department of the Vienna public prosecutor dealing with general criminal matters." In fact, Haslhofer never started the job mentioned. The case was then repeatedly transferred to new public prosecutors, who repeatedly had to familiarize themselves with the extensive matter.

On January 26, 2010, under the direction of Markus Fussenegger, the public prosecutor's office carried out 15 raids in the course of their investigations, twelve of which were house searches in Austria (Vienna, Lower Austria and Vorarlberg) and three in Liechtenstein. The house of the Viennese real estate agent and Grasser confidante Ernst Karl Plech was also searched . He was BUWOG President and at the same time a member of the award committee that decided on the Buwog sale.

The public prosecutor's office also frozen accounts of the Mandarin Group Limited at Raiffeisen Bank in Liechtenstein, to which, according to court documents, money from Meischberger flowed. Next, the account is to be opened in court to check transactions between Mandarin and the Swiss Ferint AG . The latter trust company is attributed to Grasser. Grasser is said to have processed his profit of 500,000 euros from the dubious sale of Hypo Group Alpe Adria in 2006 through this company.

On July 10, 2010, the Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed the initiation of criminal proceedings against Grasser, Ernst-Karl Plech and Grasser's ex-cabinet employee Michael Ramprecht on suspicion of breach of trust . In total, the public prosecutor's office determined on the basis of a presentation of the facts of the Green MP Gabriela Moser because of possible abuse of official authority to the detriment of taxpayers, breach of official secrecy and anti-competitive agreements in the bidding process.

After Grasser had been questioned repeatedly by the public prosecutor's office, on July 28, 2010, she ordered all Austrian banks to disclose all of Grasser's accounts.

In 2012, the media trials between Grasser and Ramprecht were put on hold until the Buwog criminal case was resolved. A recruitment application by Grasser was rejected because there was sufficient suspicion to continue the criminal investigation. In March 2012, Grasser lost a trial against Gabriela Moser . Moser does not have to retract her assertion that the ex-minister had "conspiratorial talks" aimed at illegally influencing the Buwog proceedings. Accordingly, Moser expects the investigative authorities "to clarify soon whether or not charges will be brought against ex-finance minister Karl-Heinz Grasser."

On July 21, 2016, the public prosecutor's office for business and corruption announced that he would bring charges against Karl-Heinz Grasser , Walter Meischberger , Ernst Plech , Peter Hochegger and twelve other people in the BUWOG and Terminal Tower cases. According to the indictment, the total damage caused amounts to ten million euros, resulting in a sentence of up to ten years in prison. The process began on December 12, 2017, although the General Procuratorate and Grasser's attorney Manfred Ainedter had questioned the objectivity of Judge Marion Hohenecker. However, the nullity complaints were rejected by the Supreme Court .

Grasser's Board of Trustees steals court files

Shortly before Christmas 2011, there was a stir about files relating to Grasser's foundation and company network, which were confiscated during house searches in Liechtenstein. A lawyer and Trustee Grasser had taken the files with him when he inspected files and only brought them back weeks later. Interestingly, the lawyer who works for Marxer & Partner is also active in the co-governing Progressive Citizens' Party (FBP), which also provides the Minister of Justice. The Principality of Liechtenstein promised Austria administrative assistance, but did not hand over the data until January 2014.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Buwog: Grasser complains to Moser, Member of the Green Party . In: The press . July 11, 2010
  2. ↑ 46 investors on the list . In: ORF . January 14, 2010
  3. ↑ Suspicion of infidelity: Grasser friends in sight . In: ORF . July 10, 2010
  4. ↑ Partial Report 2007 04 Volume 2
  5. ↑ Page 107 Protocol Parliament
  6. ^ Wiener Zeitung
  7. ↑ Michael Nikbakhsh , Josef Redl: Karl-Heinz Grasser under suspicion of infidelity . In: profile . July 10, 2010
  8. ↑ Die Presse: Lehman Affair . In: Die Presse April 9, 2015
  9. ↑ Hellin Sapinski: Grasser on the Buwog case: "I didn't care who wins" . In: The press . April 17, 2012
  10. ↑ Grasser before the U Committee . In: The Standard . April 17, 2012
  11. ^ Ashwien Sankholkar : Affair: How Karl-Heinz Grasser and Jörg Haider influenced the Buwog deal . In: format . May 13, 2010
  12. ^ Ashwien Sankholkar : BUWOG deal: The property sale was a gold mine for Grasser's friends . In: format . September 18, 2009
  13. ^ Breakthrough in Causa Buwog: "Karl-Heinz Grasser can come" . In: Tyrolean daily newspaper . April 30, 2012
  14. ^ Rainer Fleckl & Philipp Hacker: BUWOG: What Grasser really knew . In: Courier . April 28, 2012
  15. ↑ Ashwien Sankholkar : Buwog affair: millions of commissions flowed to Meischberger company Omega International . In: format . October 15, 2009
  16. ↑ Joachim Riedl : Austria: “I'm super naked now!” In: Die Zeit . December 30, 2010
  17. ↑ a b c Grasser and the Buwog cause . In: The Standard . April 16, 2012
  18. ↑ Grasser's holiday invitation puts pressure on Bandion . In: The Standard . April 18, 2010
  19. ↑ A few weeks before the BUWOG deal . In: ORF . April 17, 2010
  20. ↑ Andreas Schnauder: The legislature made a mistake with Buwog . In: The Standard . March 6, 2012
  21. ↑ Hanna Kordik: Public prosecutors are not bullied . In: The press . September 10, 2010
  22. ↑ CA Immo wants to exercise its rights . In: The Standard . January 27, 2010
  23. ↑ Another raid in the Buwog affair . In: The Standard . January 26, 2010
  24. ↑ Suspected illegal influence . In: The Standard . July 8, 2010
  25. ↑ Karl-Heinz Grasser in the sights of the judiciary . In: The Standard . July 11, 2010
  26. ↑ The Greens - The Green Alternative : Moser versus Grasser - the indictment in detail . October 6, 2009
  27. ↑ Public prosecutor has Grasser's accounts opened . In: The Standard . September 13, 2010
  28. ^ Buwog: Moser succeeds in stage victory against Grasser. The press, March 24, 2013
  29. ↑ Green Moser wins legal battle against Grasser. APA, March 24, 2013
  30. ^ Allegations of corruption: charges against Grasser, Meischberger and 14 other people in Causa Buwog and Linz Terminal Tower. derStandard.at, July 21, 2016, accessed on July 21, 2016 .
  31. ↑ No nullity: Supreme Court decision: Buwog process can start as planned . In: www.kleinezeitung.at . ( kleinezeitung.at [accessed December 12, 2017]).
  32. ↑ Liechtensteiner Grasser-Intimus must fear lawsuit . In: The Standard . April 4, 2012
  33. ↑ alice.hohl: BUWOG affair: Grasser files from Liechtenstein are there . ( kurier.at [accessed on January 9, 2018]).