The processing of the failed car toll has a legal aftermath for the former Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer (CSU).
The Berlin public prosecutor's office initiated an investigation against Scheuer and the former Secretary of State for Transport Gerhard Schulz because of a possible false statement in the investigative committee of the Bundestag, as the authority announced on Tuesday.
The "Spiegel" reported about it first.
Scheuer told the German Press Agency: "I testified truthfully before the investigative committee.
There is nothing to add.
I am firmly assuming that a review will not come to any different conclusions either.”
The public prosecutor's office in Berlin announced that preliminary proceedings against Scheuer and Schulz had already been initiated on April 13 - on suspicion of false unsworn testimony before the investigative committee.
The procedure is based on several criminal complaints from private individuals.
Operator contracts concluded early
The car toll - a prestige project of the CSU in the then black-red federal government - was stopped in June 2019 by the European Court of Justice as illegal.
A committee of inquiry had dealt with possible mistakes made by Scheuer.
The main criticism was that Scheuer concluded operator contracts for the car toll at the end of 2018 - even before there was final legal certainty at the ECJ.
The investigations of the public prosecutor's office are specifically about: Scheuer and Schulz are said to have testified "deliberately untruthfully" according to their recollection that there was no offer from the designated toll operator consortium to conclude the contract for the car toll at a time after the expected ECJ postpone judgment.
Managers of the operating companies actually intended for the car toll had reported such an offer to Scheuer in the investigative committee.
Scheuer, on the other hand, told the investigative committee at the beginning of October 2020 that, as far as he could remember, there was no such offer from the operators.
The failed car toll could still be expensive for taxpayers.
As the intended operators CTS Eventim and Kapsch Trafficcom announced at the end of March, an arbitration court affirmed a claim for damages and reimbursement of expenses against the Federal Republic.
In a second phase of the arbitration proceedings, the amount of the claim will now be decided.
The companies are demanding 560 million euros.
Immediately after the judgment of the ECJ, Scheuer terminated the operator contracts, among other things because they had not fulfilled the contractual services.