A new report on the bankruptcy of the Burgenland Commerzialbank has it all: in the end of 1999 – just three years after the foundation – the bank was de facto insolvent. Nevertheless, 2.9 billion euros flowed 20 years to 766 deposit accounts from the bank.
In 2020, the bank went bankrupt in one of the most exciting financial scandals in Austrian history. Since then the case has been employed. Bank boss Martin Pucher is not negotiable, his colleague Franziska Klikovits has already been convicted, not legally binding. The process must be completed in July. The Auditor Karl Hengstberger followed the decline of the bank on 600 pages in an expert opinion.
Despite insolvency, it continued for years
Already in 1999 the bank would no longer have been entitled to “doing bank transactions” due to insolvency, the “courier” quoted from the report. Nevertheless, around 2.9 billion euros flowed 20 years to 766 deposit bills from the bank.
In the two years, loans of more than 86 million euros were granted to customers, bodies of Commerzialbank and close persons, “who were not economically unimaginable”. Pucher thus supported four – now Insolvent – companies with 31.2 million euros, those Puchers Football Club SV Mattersburg sponsored with the money. Moreover, there were “non -existent requirements for customers or credit institutions”, in 2018 this had more than 570 million euros.
12,000 euros per month for Judo -trainers
Curios can also be found in the report, reports the “Kurier”: Pucher would have hoped for years to iron losses due to millions of profit with environmentalocentries. He even paid a consultant for the Arab region and Africa called Kassamba. This would have been a judo trainer of the nephew of the Sheikh of Qatar. He received 12,000 euros per month, a total of 420,000 euros came together, plus air travel with a total of 72,000 euros.
Moreover, Hengstberger, the maker of the report, also looked at the references of the bank directors. In the case of a shortage company, a reference is considered excessive when it goes beyond what is ‘necessary for the most complicated lifestyle’.
Far too high references according to the report
Total were the references of the Board of Directors Martin Pucher, Franziska Klikovits and Maria Geier and Walter Hack 11.6 million euros gross in 12 years. According to Hengstberger, it would have been considerably less according to the report, the salaries were too high with 8.2 million euros.
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.
