Bankers ‘too big to jail’, whistleblowers, journalists small enough?

This 18 October 2018 video says about itself:

A group of bankers and lawyers have robbed Europe’s taxpayers of €55 billion.

The #CumExFiles is a joint investigation by 19 European media from twelve countries, coordinated by the German non-profit newsroom CORRECTIV. Learn more here.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

German public prosecutor conducts investigation into a journalist who revealed big fraud

The Public Prosecution Service in Hamburg conducts criminal investigations into a journalist of the research collective Correctiv. This journalist – Oliver Schröm – is supposedly guilty of “inciting to reveal trade secrets” through his disclosures about dividend tax fraud. One can get up to three years in prison or a hefty fine for that in Germany.

CumEx Files

Schröm was part of an international team of journalists that brought large-scale fraud to light. The so-called CumEx Files revealed that groups of bankers, traders and hedge funds circumvented dividend tax or made double claims through complicated constructions.

The total damage between 2001 and 2016 would certainly be EUR 55.2 billion. The Netherlands was also affected by the scandal. The publication by Correctiv is partly based on internal documents from the Swiss private bank Sarasin. Meanwhile, it has been proven that the bank was an important pivot in CumEx fraud practices.

Two employees of the bank were arrested and interrogated at the time. Schröm knew that he too had been investigated by the Swiss judicial authorities on suspicion of industrial espionage since 2014. Nothing has happened so far.

The Swiss public prosecutor has asked the German judiciary to continue the investigation. The Public Prosecution Service in Hamburg started working on this a number of months ago.

The research caused great indignation at Schröm’s editorial staff. “This accusation is bizarre. Oliver Schröm has done his job as a journalist and unveiled a major injustice in society. It is shocking that the German judiciary can be used as an instrument by its perpetrators. The attempt to silence a journalist and an editorial staff is an abuse of criminal law”, Correctiv writes in an open letter to the government.

The Hamburg Public Prosecution Service already has a substantial file about Schröm. Several possible sources of the journalist have been questioned. Personal relationships and his residence have also been investigated.

Against the research collective Follow the Money, with whom he jointly investigated the CumEx fraud, Schröm says that he is particularly concerned about the consequences for journalism and press freedom.

Thank you very much for the great support to our cooperation partners at the #CumExFiles. That helps me and that means a lot to me.

— Oliver Schröm (@OliverSchroem) December 11, 2018

Schröm: “If I would be convicted, then that would mean that we, journalists, might as well stop our work, as we could no longer receive information from a source or whistleblower, and no longer publish confidential business documents.”