PWB lawyers

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The PWB Lawyers is a German law firm owned by the lawyer Philipp Wolfgang Beyer. PWB was best known for its controversial legal advice to aggrieved investors, as legal advisor to the AfD- related website “ Journalistenwatch ” (Journalistenwatch “Association for Media Criticism and Counter-Publicity ”) and the AfD-affiliated Gustav Stresemann Foundation . Since mid-2017, the Gera public prosecutor's office has been investigating the law firm for customer fraud in connection with advising "financial asset victims".

History and structure

The namesake of the law firm PWB Rechtsanwälte in Jena is Philipp Wolfgang Beyer. According to its own information, the company is geared towards capital investment, capital market and commercial law. She advises private and institutional investors and local authorities in all areas of capital investment and commercial law.

According to its own information, PWB Rechtsanwälte employed over 70 people in 2016, including 12 specialized lawyers. Since then, the number of professionals at this law firm has steadily decreased. Since the beginning of 2019, the firm's homepage no longer shows "specialized lawyers".

Associated with PWB are:

  • German Consumer Protection Ring eV (DVS), consumer protection association that disseminates information on all aspects of capital investment law and offers assistance from lawyers of trust (primarily from the law firm PWB Rechtsanwälte) in problematic cases. Philipp Wolfgang Beyer was President of the DVS in 2007.

In addition, Beyer and Matthias Kilian, a former employee of PWB, are managing partners of BKR Beyer Kilian Rechtsanwälte Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB in Jena, at the same address as PWB. According to Stiftung Warentest, this firm attracted attention as "dubious lawyers" for "reclaiming money from electricity and gas suppliers" and put both lawyers on the warning list of Stiftung Warentest, and the public prosecutor would investigate the case.

In the meantime, the Jena public prosecutor has brought charges before the Jena District Court.

Advice to aggrieved investors

According to Stiftung Warentest, PWB files many lawsuits to get information from government agencies. The key point of this procedure according to the IFG (Freedom of Information Act) is the assumption that z. B. the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) or other authorities in some cases had early knowledge of fraudulent investment companies and could have prevented greater damage to investors if they intervened early. However, the authorities refuse to provide information, citing business secrets. Model proceedings are currently at the European Court of Justice ( ECJ ). The law firm refers to around 3,000 mass mandates on its website and around 15,000 in investment law.

BFI bank

PWB advertises with advice to aggrieved investors and acts with mass mandates in larger cases. According to Stiftung Warentest, PWB Rechtsanwälte suggested to several injured parties that they could get their financial damage reimbursed by the state, after all, the financial supervisory authority had failed. However, the legislature excludes the Bafin from being liable to investors, regardless of whether they acted correctly or actually incorrectly. On November 10, 2015, the Frankfurt am Main administrative court accused a number of lawyers of the firm of having "aroused objectively wrong and completely unreal ideas and expectations" in their clients. Stiftung Warentest quotes the Frankfurt administrative judge as saying: The lawsuits “served exclusively as a kind of 'money printing machine' for the lawyers. A more blatant case of legal abuse is hardly conceivable ”. It was important to the lawyers "to generate maximum fees". The reasoning of the complaints is "so far removed from what can still appear legally justifiable that the criminal law relevance of this type of incorrect advice towards the client is almost imposed." (Az. 7 K 2707 / 15.F) The court dismissed the lawsuits that PWB had filed for more than one hundred victims of the insolvent BFI Bank .

The Federal Court of Justice and the European Court of Justice have confirmed the Bafin’s liability exclusion . According to its own statements, PWB still considers it to be contrary to European law.

Broadcasting fee

In 2016, PWB lawyer Sascha Giller represented several plaintiffs who refused to pay the license fee because they did not own a television. The Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) decided in the final instance that the fee must also be paid by those who do not have a television set . Giller then wanted to examine a constitutional complaint . A result of the test is not known.

Pharma database

In the same year, the law firm wrote to doctors nationwide who were on a list published by Spiegel Online and Correctiv . The list included the names of some 20,000 doctors and other health professionals who had accepted money and donations from the pharmaceutical industry . It was accompanied by reporting on the pharmaceutical industry's transparency initiative and explanations of the payments. BKR wrote that it was about a " corruption charge against your person". Spiegel Online and the Correctiv research association would include the named medical professionals in a “list of commercially available doctors” and “assume in the subtext that you prescribe certain drugs for your patients for money from the pharmaceutical industry that you would otherwise never prescribe for lack of an indication”.

Investigations

PWB filed suit for claims of its clients, the enforcement of which - so the allegation of the investigators - had been economically pointless for the injured party. The lawyers' fee claims would have been between 100 and 900 euros and thus partly higher than the original damage sums. In mid-2017, the investigators assumed around 3,500 cases.

In mid-June 2017, the police searched branches of PWB Rechtsanwälte in a coordinated manner in Thuringia , Saxony , Bavaria , North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg and seized documents in a total of 15 objects. Eight public prosecutors were on duty in Jena , Erfurt , Rudolstadt , Hamburg, Dresden , Cologne , in the Erding area and in the Gotha and Weimarer Land districts , and four terabytes of data and more than 1,600 client files were secured in paper form. The public prosecutor's office in Gera had previously investigated three PWB lawyers, including Philipp Wolfgang Beyer. There is a suspicion of commercial fraud in the offense with criminal advertising, said the public prosecutor .

Connections to the right-wing conservative camp

Sascha Giller and Philipp Wolfgang Beyer founded the foundation association of the Gustav Stresemann Foundation in 2011 . Giller and Beyer were active in the Thuringian regional executive committee of the small Islam-critical party Die Freiheit .

PWB is legal advisor to the operating association Journalistenwatch - Association for Media Criticism and Counter-Publicity e. V. of the AfD- related website “ Journalistenwatch ”. The founder of the site, Thomas Böhm, was also active in "Freedom". The site shares content and authors with the right-wing radical site " PI-News ". The former federal chairman of "Freiheit" Michael Stürzenberger is seen as the main operator of the site today . “Journalistenwatch” and “PI” both share content with the Deutschland-Kurier , which is published weekly by the AfD supporter club “ Association for the Preservation of the Rule of Law and Civil Liberties ”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Broadcasting contribution legal - PWB Rechtsanwälte examines constitutional complaint (VIDEO) . In: FinanzNachrichten.de . ( finanznachrichten.de [accessed on January 16, 2018]).
  2. ^ A b Strube: ZEIT Online: Warning of dubious methods in soliciting mandates. Retrieved January 29, 2018 (German).
  3. ↑ Stiftung Warentest: Gas and electricity prices: You should be careful with these lawyers. June 19, 2018, accessed on October 9, 2018 (German). , published in Finanztest 07/2018.
  4. ^ Stiftung Warentest: PWB Rechtsanwälte - charges brought - Stiftung Warentest. Retrieved August 29, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c Stiftung Warentest: Investor lawsuits - How a law firm deceives aggrieved investors - Special - Stiftung Warentest. Retrieved January 15, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Investor lawyers: Maximum generation of legal fees. Retrieved January 29, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Stuttgarter Nachrichten, Stuttgart, Germany: Consumer advocates warn: Anyone who has suffered damage to the capital market does not need to worry about lawyers . In: stuttgarter-nachrichten.de . ( stuttgarter-nachrichten.de [accessed on January 29, 2018]).
  8. ↑ According to the court, the law firm operates a "money printing machine" for lawyers . In: manager magazin . ( manager-magazin.de [accessed January 15, 2018]).
  9. ↑ Doubtful chances of success: wrong advice from investor lawyers. In: Wirtschaftswoche. Retrieved January 15, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b mdr.de: Investigations against lawyers from Jena on suspicion of fraud | MDR.DE . ( mdr.de [accessed on January 16, 2018]). 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mdr.de
  11. ↑ Broadcasting contribution legal - PWB Rechtsanwälte examines constitutional complaint (VIDEO) . In: FinanzNachrichten.de . ( finanznachrichten.de [accessed on January 16, 2018]).
  12. ↑ Hristio Boytchev, Markus Grill: Pharmaceutical funds for doctors: Jena law firm instigates doctors to complain . In: Spiegel Online . November 16, 2016 ( spiegel.de [accessed January 22, 2018]).
  13. ↑ JUVE - www.juve.de: raid in Jena Chambers is said to have driven investors in dubious actions "JUVE. Retrieved January 29, 2018 (German).
  14. ↑ Investor lawyers in their sights: Raid in five federal states . In: manager magazin . ( manager-magazin.de [accessed January 15, 2018]).
  15. ^ PWB lawyers: large raid due to fraud Jena law firm. (No longer available online.) In: Gerlachreport. Archived from the original on January 23, 2018 ; accessed on January 22, 2018 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gerlachreport.com
  16. ↑ n-tv news television: AfD reaches for foundation millions . In: n-tv.de . ( n-tv.de [accessed on January 29, 2018]).
  17. ↑ Sebastian Pittelkow, Katja Riedel, Jens Schneider: Planned AfD foundation could attract right-wing patrons . In: sueddeutsche.de . 2018, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on January 29, 2018]).
  18. ^ A b Nico Schmidt: "Journalistenwatch": The America Connection of the New Right . In: The time . December 17, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed January 29, 2018]).
  19. ↑ DIE WELT: PI-News: Undercover reporter travels with right-wing populists - and is shocked . In: THE WORLD . January 9, 2017 ( welt.de [accessed January 29, 2018]).
  20. ↑ a b tagesschau.de: AfD Foundation: Right-wing pullers behind the "Stresemann" project. Retrieved January 29, 2018 (German).
  21. ^ Martin Bernstein: State security determined after the Antifa Congress against Pegida . In: sueddeutsche.de . November 6, 2017, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed January 29, 2018]).
  22. ^ FPÖ Watch: The ABC of dubious sources - an overview. In: FPÖ Watch. November 14, 2015, accessed January 29, 2018 .
  23. ^ Stiftung Warentest: PWB Rechtsanwälte - charges brought - Stiftung Warentest. Retrieved August 28, 2020 .