Stock market watchdog to probe leaks in Deutsche Post fraud case
The German stock market regulator, BAWe, will investigate press leaks of details of a confidential official report revealing tax fraud by Deutsche Post, the Financial Times Deutschland reported Friday.
Shares in the partly privatised postal company plunged after the publication early this year of the leaked excerpts.
According to the reported excerpts of a tax court report, Finance Minister Hans Eichel ignored Deutsche Post’s non-payment of some value-added tax (VAT) to facilitate the company’s listing on the stock exchange in November 2000.
“The preliminary inquiry is finished. From that has emerged the need for additional information,” BAWe spokeswoman Regina Noessner was quoted as saying.
The watchdog probe is not aimed at Deutsche Post itself, she told the newspaper.
Deutsche Post chairman Klaus Zumwinkel threatened in March to take legal action against anyone who claims the company wrongly charged some of its customers VAT for some of its services, but failed to pass on the VAT to the tax authorities.
He declared the group had made its sale tax payments in line with current German and European Union law.
The group would also take legal action against anyone who damaged the price of Deutsche Post shares by making false allegations on this issue, Zumwinkel warned.
In Frankfurt share trading early Friday, Deutsche Post was off 1.13 percent at 16.67 euros, while the DAX index was 0.19 percent higher at 5,264.88 points.
