Novum (company)

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The Novum GmbH was a foreign trade company of the GDR . On behalf of the SED , she organized business between state- owned companies and companies in western countries. Rudolfine Steindling took over half of Novum's shares in trust in 1978 and all of Novum's shares in 1983. The company was never transferred to an organization owned by the SED , but kept the legal form of a GmbH .

History and work

The trading company founded in East Berlin on May 31, 1951 initially served the purpose of procuring goods for the GDR bypassing the economic embargo of western states. Later she was responsible for the procurement of western foreign currency as part of the commercial coordination department. To this end, she organized business between GDR companies and companies in the Federal Republic , Austria and Switzerland . In the almost 40 years of its existence, the company has generated high commission income . Only the GDR had access to some Novum accounts; a large part of the Novum proceeds flowed into the GDR state treasury or was used to finance espionage operations by the Ministry for State Security .

At the time of the fall , Novum GmbH had assets of around half a billion DM in accounts in Austria and Switzerland.

Legal disputes after 1990

After finding trust declarations dated March 16, 1978 and from 1983, which the SED company VOB Zentrag named as the Novum owner, the Treuhandanstalt took over the administration of Novum GmbH in January 1992 and had the company's accounts frozen.

As a result, the businesswoman Rudolfine Steindling sued the Treuhand successor, the Federal Agency for Unification-Related Special Tasks (BvS), before the Berlin Higher Administrative Court . She stated that with the acquisition of Novum shares since April 1983 she had been the sole shareholder of Novum on behalf of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ), and on December 12, 1996, she received the right in the first instance.

In the second instance, however , the Berlin Higher Administrative Court found that Novum GmbH was not owned by the KPÖ - as stated by the plaintiff - but was part of the SED's assets on the basis of trust agreements . The court ruled that from 1983 onwards, the Novum was only used for the appearance of Steindling in order to transfer SED assets abroad. The remaining credit of 255 million euros fell to the Federal Agency. The revision was made possible, among other things, because a Novum lawyer had provided information about the falsification or destruction of evidence with the aim of collecting the reward for finding SED party assets. Further revisions were not permitted. Before the ruling came into force, large amounts of money were transferred from company accounts so that only part of the assets could be secured. A settlement agreed on the payment of 106 million euros and the proceeds from reserves, so that the Federal Agency received a total of 120 million euros, which were paid out to the new federal states .

On March 27, 2010, the higher court of the Canton of Zurich sentenced Unicredit Bank Austria to pay 230 million euros to the Federal Agency for special tasks caused by the unification. This had sued because the bank (at that time still called Länderbank ) had paid Steindling the equivalent of around 128 million euros from the Novum accounts at the beginning of 1992, although the company was already under the trustee administration at that time. The judges ruled that the bankers had acted negligently with the payment and the corresponding sum plus 5% interest p. a. therefore to be replaced by the bank. Bank Austria's appeal against this was rejected and the amount increased to 245 million euros due to the interest. The bank challenged the ruling, the ruling was overturned by the appellate court and the proceedings were referred back to the original court. This rejected the complaint in 2013 and the judgment thus became final. Bank Austria had to pay the Federal Republic of Germany EUR 128 million, plus 5% interest since 1994.

On August 21, 2014, filed Bundesanstalt für vereinigungsbedingte Sonderaufgaben (BvS) as trustee for the assets of the former East Germany at the Zurich District Court lawsuit against the Swiss bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. to compensation for vanished East German state assets amounting to the equivalent of EUR 135 million a. This sum is said to have been transferred to the Swiss accounts of Bank Cantrade via Novum GmbH by Rudolfine Steindling. Later Steindling is said to have withdrawn the money and stored it in bank safes, although the final whereabouts are unknown. 2019 Swiss condemned Federal Court in Lausanne , the Bank Julius Baer as the legal successor of the Bank Cantrade to pay 88 million euros plus interest to the Federal Republic. The bank could not invoke the settlement concluded between Steindling and the BvS in 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Novum process: The "red Fini" worked for the SED . In: The world . September 24, 2003.
  2. ^ List of KoKo companies in: DDR-Lexikon .
  3. ↑ a b For Rote Fini, the novelty was a KPÖ company - contradicting statement in the process of millions . In: Berliner Zeitung . April 9, 2003.
  4. ↑ Kerstin Gehrke: Rotgeld . In: Der Tagesspiegel . November 27, 2001.
  5. ↑ BT-Drs. 15/1777 , p. 10.
  6. ↑ Administrative Court Berlin , judgment of December 12, 1996, Az.VG 26 A 789.92.
  7. ↑ OVG Berlin , judgment of 23 September 2003, Az.OVG 3 B 12.96.
  8. ↑ Alexander Smoltczyk: The voice from over there . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 2003, p. 63 ( online ).
  9. ↑ The Federal Republic is entitled to the novelty assets In: Wirtschaftswoche .
  10. ^ SED party funds: reviewed and adjusted . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 2001 ( online ).
  11. ^ Judgment of the Federal Administrative Court of October 14, 2004 ( BVerwG 6 B 6.04 ).
  12. ↑ Eastern federal states receive 120 million euros from old SED funds. (No longer available online.) In: Sächsische Zeitung . February 19, 2009, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on October 15, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Judgment of the Higher Court of the Canton of Zurich: Bank should repay SED million ( memento from March 29, 2010 in the web archive archive.today ), Tagesschau.de, March 27, 2010
  14. ^ Causa novum: GDR front company puts Bank Austria under pressure . In: The Standard. April 1, 2010.
  15. ^ GDR millions: Another verdict against Bank Austria . In: ORF , viewed on September 10, 2012.
  16. ^ The legacy of the red Fini ORF, November 2, 2011.
  17. ↑ Bank Austria has to repay SED black money
  18. ^ Disappeared GDR state assets: Germany sued Swiss bank. ( Memento from August 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Tagesschau, August 21, 2014.
  19. ↑ Bank Julius Baer is not yet off the hook in the dispute over GDR assets. In: NZZ. February 6, 2019.