The restructuring administrator has identified 442 payments that need to be recovered with the help of an accounting firm. A lawsuit has already been filed against tax consultancy firm TPA.
Signa Prime Selection AG, one of the core companies of the nested Signa conglomerate, has been officially insolvent since the end of 2023. The court found that. Creditors have registered claims totaling 12.205 billion euros on the company, in which financial juggler René Benko had stored mainly inner-city properties for years. An army of criminalists, lawyers and accountants have been investigating the history since the bankruptcy was declared. Important questions are: wasn’t Signa Prime bankrupt much earlier? Perhaps the bankruptcy was filed far too late? Are there any questionable transfers of assets?
Restructuring manager Norbert Abel has now gone a step further in coming to terms with the past: “as part of a rough audit” he has identified 442 payments made by Signa Prime before bankruptcy was declared, “which may be disputed”. This is stated in its fifth report to the Vienna Commercial Court, which is available to the “Krone”.
These 442 payments can be assigned to 142 potential opponents. A total of 456.1 million euros must be recovered with the support of accounting firm Grant Thornton Austria. To date, 47 demand letters have been sent setting a deadline for repayment (90.6 million euros). Lawsuits are being prepared against twenty opponents – a total of 77 million euros is at stake, which will flow back into Signa Prime’s tight coffers.
Benko’s house and court office
An already filed lawsuit for 3.94 million euros is somewhat explosive: it concerns disputed payments from Signa Prime to TPA Steuerberatungs-GmbH, which operated for years as René Benkos Haus- und Hofkanzlei. TPA had helped the Signa Group avoid the consolidation obligation. There was therefore no consolidated balance sheet that was equivalent to a financial group image. TPA partner Karin Fuhrmann has been a Benko confidant on the board of the bankrupt Family Benko Private Foundation since 2011.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
