Heinz Gerlach (publicist)

Heinz Gerlach (born August 9, 1945 in Frankfurt am Main ; † July 10, 2010 in Oberursel ) was a German publicist and publisher of periodicals on investor protection .

Life

Heinz Gerlach was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1945. After completing a commercial apprenticeship and training as a tax assistant, he worked as a publicist and published publications on investor protection. Most recently he worked as a management consultant .

He lived in Oberursel in the Taunus . There he died in his home in 2010.

Investor protection

The focus of his now controversial journalistic work since 1969 has been reporting on the gray capital market and warning against dubious providers. He described himself as Germany's oldest investor protector. He also worked with unfounded criminal charges against issuing houses that did not want to give him a consultancy contract. For this method, Gerlach was sharply reprimanded by a Cologne public prosecutor. The prosecutor wrote to Gerlach's lawyer that he had already investigated an issuing house on the basis of “baseless accusations” by Heinz Gerlach. “In those proceedings, the undersigned (the public prosecutor) was amazed to learn that the complainant (Heinz Gerlach) apparently earns money by publishing the correspondence in the investigation file by disseminating it on CD-ROM for a fee. In the case that is now to be decided, the complaint also seems to have been raised against this background ... What is particularly worrying, however, is the fact that your client (Heinz Gerlach), as the later complainant, gave the accused his prospecting know-how in the form of a prospectus review for a fee for 25 TDM had offered, which is not even mentioned in the criminal complaint. Against this background, one cannot avoid the suspicion that the motivation for the criminal complaint is only to show the accused by means of this punitive action that he should better use the prospecting know-how of the complainant, which was offered this time in vain - for a fee, of course. According to the news magazine Der Spiegel , Gerlach's business principle was “calm or damage your reputation”.

Major participations in companies and publications were:

• Since 1969 he has been collecting information in the “property, tax and legal archive of capital investments”.
• He sold the Kapitalanlage-Informationszentrum GmbH, founded by Gerlach in 1974, in 1988 to the Bertelsmann publishing group , which ran the company until 2000 as "DFI Deutsches Finanzdienstleistungs-Informationszentrum GmbH" and then sold it on to Hamburger Cash Medien AG.
• Between 1988 and 1993 Gerlach was the editor of the information service "gerlach-report".
• Since 1994 he has been the publisher of the research service “Direkter Anlegerschutz” (direct investor protection through his now insolvent company “Heinz Gerlach Medien AG”).

Consulting contracts

Heinz Gerlach's independence and professional integrity were seriously questioned in connection with the collapse of the Falk Fund in 2005. There was a consultancy agreement between Heinz Gerlach and the Falk + Partner GmbH & Co. KG group (later trading under Falk Capital AG). Gerlach was accused of not adequately addressing the references to financial problems of the Falk funds in his publications.

Under the heading “Bought praise”, the news magazine Focus reported that Gerlach should have received around 400,000 euros from the Aufina wire-pullers in order to guarantee benevolent reporting. The former Aufina board members were later sentenced to several years' imprisonment for embezzlement and fraud.

Serious allegations were made against Gerlach in connection with the economic problems of the largest closed-end funds in Germany, the Drei-Länder-Fonds (DLF). Gerlach continued to advertise DLF shares when the funds' economic problems were already foreseeable. Gerlach had a consultancy contract with the DLF.

competence

On the “Direkter Anlegerschutz” website, not only are current judgments on investor protection published, but legal statements are also made with regard to individual investment products. Keep recurring z. B. Formulations such as “serious prospectus error”, “violation of the IDW S4 standard”. Solid legal training is required to be able to make such statements. As a non-academic, Heinz Gerlach was far from such competence. Apparently there were no lawyers among his staff. Cooperation with really renowned law firms was also not evident.

Business practices

Heinz Gerlach had been convicted under civil law several times for his business practices. In August 2007, the Frankfurt am Main regional court sentenced him in main proceedings for his business practices. His principle of combining the demand for internal business documents to be sent with the threat of a negative rating was generally prohibited as dishonest behavior. The district court spoke of a "discriminatory competitive act", a "targeted obstruction" and an "inadmissible interference with the established and exercised commercial enterprise". Another ruling by the Frankfurt / Main Regional Court made Gerlach financially liable for false claims against issuing houses. The judges ruled on June 22, 2005: "It is determined that the defendant is obliged to reimburse the plaintiff for any future damage that she suffered as a result of the statements made by the defendant." (AZ: 3-08 O 12 / 05) In the judgment it says: "It would be strange to assume that the owner of the defendant (Heinz Gerlach) did not write the article with the intention of promoting the competition of his company Heinz Gerlach - Direkter Anlegerschutz eK." The Higher Regional Court In its judgment, Düsseldorf denies that Heinz Gerlach is active as an investor protector (AZ: 20 U 76/95). The court found that “what the defendant (Gerlach) is doing is not at all investor protection.” In the judgment it says: “Such an assertion is misleading the investors, at least a very significant part of them, because that is precisely what investor protection means expect what the defendant does not offer. "

Works

• Private customer business handbook. ISBN 3-7819-0623-X (co-author)

Web links

• Homepage of the Heinz Gerlach MEDIEN AG
• Where is the money

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The man who saw through dubious financial systems did not recognize the hostile system in his own body .
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Isabell Hülsen : MONEY INVESTMENT: "Quiet or reputation damage" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 2008 ( online - July 7, 2008 ).
4. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ^ Report Mainz, broadcast on June 12, 2006
6. ↑ Focus, September 4, 2006
7. ↑ http://www.wirtschaftsfahndung.de/Home/ Betrug%20und%20untreue%20bei% 20Aufina.htm
8. ↑ http://www.wallstreet-online.de/diskussion/1152657-1-10/wer-ist-anlegerschuetzer-heinz-gerlach
9. ↑ Regional Court Frankfurt aM, AZ: 3-11 O 2/07 (PDF; 2.0 MB)
10. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.