In the processing of fraudulent cum-ex tax transactions, there is an abrupt turn in the newly opened process for industrial espionage against the German lawyer and scout Eckart Seith.
Judge Rolf Naef from the Zurich Higher Court declared a public prosecutor from Zurich who had previously dealt with the case to be biased that the results of his investigation could not be used.
The judge wanted to announce in the afternoon how the trial against Seith and two co-defendants will continue.
The indictment was related to one of the biggest tax scandals of the post-war period.
This involves fraudulent cum-ex deals, in which investment funds can only be reimbursed several times for taxes that have only been paid once.
Since then, a German customer of the Swiss bank J. Safra Sarasin, who lost a lot of money through cum-ex deals brokered by the bank, had fought for damages in Ulm.
In the process, he presented internal bank documents that triggered extensive cum-ex investigations in Germany.
However, the Swiss public prosecutor saw industrial espionage in the delivery of the documents and had in turn charged Seith and two former employees of the bank.
Since then, the accusation of industrial espionage had been acquitted in a first trial in 2019.
But it remained a guilty verdict for offenses against the banking law.
The two bank employees were also found guilty.
Both the public prosecutor and the defendants had appealed.