Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office suspends investigations into Meinl European Land (MEL). The case was investigated by the judiciary for more than 15 years.
Vienna Peter Weinsierl is currently in London fearing extradition to the United States. US authorities have charged the former head of Vienna Main Bank with tax evasion in connection with a bribery scandal at Brazil’s Odebrecht Group. But in Austria he has one less thing to worry about.
The Vienna public prosecutor’s office dropped proceedings against him, ex-employer and ex-chairman of the supervisory board of Meinl Bank, Julius Lindbergh Meinl V. et al. This means that there are no longer any proceedings pending against my European Land (MEL) at the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Between March 2005 and July 2007 there was suspicion of serious business fraud to the detriment of numerous investors who had invested in Meinl European Land Certificates. During the 2008 financial crisis, Mel’s stock price plummeted. The State Attorney’s Office has been working on the matter ever since.
There was no evidence of motive
“It was stopped because there was no evidence of any intention to damage the investors’ property or to enrich themselves illegally,” a statement from the Vienna public prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday afternoon. “Based on the results of detailed investigations, such intent could not be proved with the degree of probability required to bring charges,” it continued. “There is no denying that the defendants have long believed that Mel’s business model is sound and promising in the long term” and would be financially viable for investors.
In addition, the proceedings were terminated due to suspicion of breach of trust against Mel through the purchase of Mel Certificates for €1.8 billion during the period from February 2007 to August 2007 (the “Purchase”) for reasons of evidence. In view of the findings of the present inquiry, Mel’s directors are entitled to assume that they are authorized to make such purchases by virtue of the provisions of Jersey law applicable to them. In case of doubt, the accused could not prove that they had knowingly acted with intent to abuse their power, and seriously considered the possibility, and resigned themselves that it would damage Mel’s property.
Act contains 40 terabytes of data
Thus the court has put a huge task in abeyance. The investigation file of this case contains 9,563 serial numbers. “In addition to the requests for legal aid for Liechtenstein and Switzerland, a total of six reports were received from banking and stock market departments or accounting experts,” the public prosecutor’s office said. “A total of 40 terabytes of data had to be processed, which corresponds to about 44 million books of 250 pages each.”
