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Aurubis factory premises in Hamburg: victims of fraudsters in several cases

Photo: Marcus Brandt/dpa

After three-digit million losses due to fraud and theft at Hamburg-based Aurubis AG, almost the entire board of directors has to leave the group prematurely.

The supervisory board of the metal and recycling specialist has now officially confirmed this.

“The three board members are taking into account the special challenges faced by Aurubis in the past financial year, particularly with regard to the serious cases of fraud and theft at the Hamburg plant and incidents in the area of ​​occupational safety,” says the Aurubis press release.

Last year, three employees died in a nitrogen leak at Aurubis.

Accordingly, CFO Rainer Verhoeven, who is responsible for risk management, will leave the company on June 30th and production director Heiko Arnold will leave the company on February 29th.

CEO Roland Harings will be leaving on September 30th - by then he should be preparing to hand over to a successor.

He had previously expressed confidence "that the investigations show that we have managed the company with all due care and responsibility."

Damage amounting to 185 million euros

Aurubis was the victim of fraudsters in several cases.

The company is missing valuable recycled material worth 185 million euros.

The suspicion is directed against scrap suppliers and our own employees, it was said.

The cases of theft and fraud remained undetected for a long time.

This raised doubts among the members of the control committee about the risk management of the company management.

A law firm then investigated the board's responsibility in the context of the crimes.

Shortly before Christmas, the Aurubis supervisory board announced that it would have the law firm Hengeler Mueller examine whether and what responsibility its own board bore for the crimes.

Most recently, in a trial involving silver theft at Aurubis, several defendants made confessions before the Hamburg district court.

The scandal also had a negative impact on its own shares.

They were among the biggest MDax losers on Monday with a loss of 4.9 percent and reached their lowest level since the beginning of September.

After the change in management was announced, they recorded an increase of 2.6 percent on Tuesday.

This means that only board member Inge Hofkens, who was newly appointed a year ago, would remain in office.

In addition to her previous tasks in the multimetal recycling area, she will also take on overall responsibility for the commercial area.

Markus Kramer, who was previously a member of the Supervisory Board, will be appointed as a new member of the Executive Board until September 30th.

The personnel moves were expected after weeks of speculation.

Official successors have not yet been determined.

lph/dpa