Helmut Elsner

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Helmut Elsner ( May 12, 1935 in Wiener Neustadt ; † January 18, 2022 in Bad Reichenhall ) was an Austrian banker and long-standing member of the board and general manager of BAWAG ( Arbeiterbank until 1964 ). He was a central figure in the so-called BAWAG affair , as a result of which he was sentenced to several years in prison in 2008 . After four and a half years he was released from prison for health reasons. As of 2015, he sought a retrial.

Life

education and career

Elsner grew up in modest circumstances in Graz . His mother was employed by Kastner & Öhler , his father died during World War II . He attended a commercial academy and then began his professional career in 1955 in a branch of Arbeiterbank ( BAWAG since 1964 ) in Graz. Just eleven years after joining the company, he was promoted to branch manager . In 1978 he was brought to the headquarters in Vienna by the then BAWAG boss Walter Flöttl and became part of the board of directors, where he was responsible for commercial key account business. In 1995 he became the bank's chairman of the board. In 2003 he retired.

On May 21, 2008, Helmut Elsner was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for embezzlement because, according to the court, he had given Hermann Gerharter, the former general director of Konsum Austria , 550,000 euros in cash from BAWAG so that he could pay the legal costs from the consumer trial could.

BAWAG process

In the course of the insolvency of the US broker Refco in 2005, concealed losses from interest rate and currency speculation by BAWAG between 1995 and 2000 became public. In 2007, charges were brought against Helmut Elsner, Wolfgang Flöttl (son of former BAWAG boss Walter Flöttl ) and six others.

According to the indictment, Elsner and his accomplices entered into transactions with investment banker Wolfgang Flöttl from autumn 1998 without sufficient security or cushioning measures. Elsner was accused of infidelity and fraud. Regarding the allegation of infidelity, Elsner said that Wolfgang Flöttl was bound by very strict conditions in the transactions. Flöttl replied that he had a free hand and claimed to have been put under pressure by Elsner. According to the indictment, Flöttl lost 639 million dollars in one fell swoop in autumn 1998 because he was speculating against the Japanese yen. The bank continued to inject money into the year 2000, which is why, according to investigations by public prosecutor Georg Krakow, the damage had increased to 1.44 billion euros by the year 2000. Due to the losses, the Austrian Trade Union Confederation (ÖGB) had to provide guarantees at the time so that Bawag would not report a balance sheet loss. The trial began on July 16, 2007 and ended on July 4, 2008 with a guilty verdict of embezzlement and fraud. Helmut Elsner was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. Elsner deceived the supervisory board of Bawag about the investments of Wolfgang Flöttl (infidelity) and stole a pension settlement in the amount of 6.8 million euros (fraud).

The Supreme Court vacated the fraud conviction in 2010 but upheld the embezzlement conviction. Since the public prosecutor's office no longer accused Elsner of fraud, Bawag filed a subsidiary charge because of the pension payments . He was also acquitted of this in December 2015. Elsner did not deceive the supervisory board.

In July 2011, Elsner was granted a court-ordered, retrospective stay of imprisonment for medical reasons, and he was released. In February 2015, Elsner's attorney filed a motion for a retrial . Wolfgang Flöttl should be held accountable for fraud (he was acquitted) and Elsner's judgment for breach of trust should be reopened. Elsner accuses Flöttl of stealing at least one billion euros. The application for retrial was rejected almost two years later in December 2016, whereupon the lawyer wrote a complaint to the Higher Regional Court of Vienna.

According to the Paradise Papers , it became known that within a month in 1990, seven companies had been founded on the Caribbean island of Aruba , with Flöttl acting as director. He held this until 1999 and dissolved it in 2000. Elsner's lawyer is of the opinion that these companies should have been disclosed in the proceedings in order to clarify whether Flöttl still had assets to cover the losses he caused. There is now a new investigative approach by the law enforcement authorities.

Others

Helmut Elsner was deputy chairman of the memorial service association "Never Forget". He lived in the French town of Mougins and in Vienna . He was married to Ruth Elsner and has one daughter.

In 1991 he became a member of the SPÖ , but resigned in 2006.

awards

web links

itemizations

  1. ↑ Bettina Pfluger, Renate Graber: Ex-Bawag director Helmut Elsner is dead. In: derStandard.at . January 28, 2022, retrieved January 28, 2022 .
  2. ↑ From feudal lord to pitiful convict. In: Wiener Zeitung . 7 July 2011, retrieved 6 November 2017 .
  3. ↑ Elsner and Gerharter: Penalties confirmed. In: ORF. December 1, 2009, retrieved November 6, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Is Helmut Elsner innocent after all? What speaks for - what speaks against. In: profile. August 25, 2007, retrieved November 6, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b c Michael Nikbakhsh: Helmut Elsner: "They are waiting for my death". In: profile. January 26, 2017, retrieved November 6, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Imprisonment and high fines. In: ORF. 4 July 2008, retrieved 6 November 2017 .
  7. ↑ Manfred Seeh: Elsner: public prosecutor approves release. In: The Press. 8 July 2011, retrieved 6 November 2017 .
  8. ↑ Elsner: "Flöttl stole at least one billion" , Addendum , November 6, 2017, retrieved November 7, 2017
  9. ↑ So far unknown companies. In: ORF. November 5, 2017, retrieved November 5, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Salzburger Nachrichten of March 4, 2008 ; accessed May 21, 2008 [1]
  11. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Elsner, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian manager
BIRTH DATE May 12, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiener Neustadt
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 2022
PLACE OF DEATH Bad Reichenhall