Overview

• The Bundesfinanzhof in Munich rejected the Warburg Group’s complaint and declined to admit a revision against the Finanzgericht Hamburg’s November 2023 decision.
• Hamburg’s financial court had ruled that the tax authority lawfully sought €155 million in repayments tied to Cum-Ex dividend-strip transactions from 2007 to 2011.
• With the highest-court decision now final, Warburg has no further judicial avenues to recover the payment it made under reservation in 2020.
• A parliamentary inquiry by the Hamburgische Bürgerschaft found no evidence of improper influence by leading politicians in the tax-recovery proceedings.
• Cum-Ex trades exploited share transfers around dividend dates to trigger illegitimate tax-refund claims, inflicting multi-billion-euro losses on the German state.