First Details on the Benko Indictment

According to a report by the magazine "profil," Benko is alleged to have hidden assets from his creditors before his insolvency. The presumption of innocence applies, and Benko has the opportunity to contest the indictment.

"profil" quotes from indictment against Benko

"Under the impression of increasing payment difficulties and a bankruptcy that was foreseeable for him at the latest from autumn, the accused decided to withdraw assets from the reach of his creditors by transferring them, among other things, to the control of his mother, Ingeborg Benko, or to the control of companies and private foundations (including Laura Privatstiftung), from which he himself benefited directly or indirectly and whose official beneficiaries are Ingeborg Benko and his legitimate children," quotes "profil" from the indictment.

The Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office (WKStA) accuses Rene Benko, who is in pre-trial detention, as reported, of having concealed assets during the insolvency of his company network and thereby damaging the creditors. On one hand, it concerns an advance payment of rent and operating costs amounting to around 360,000 euros for the rental of a house on the Innsbruck Hungerburg, with the sum being "economically and factually unjustifiable" according to WKStA, and on the other hand, a gift to relatives of 300,000 euros. This incriminates a total damage of 660,000 euros. Benko faces a prison sentence of one to a maximum of ten years if convicted.

Investigators suspect money carousel

However, the property in question does not belong to Benko himself. According to "profil," the owner is RB Immobilienverwaltungs GmbH & Co KG. This, in turn, belongs to RB Immobilienverwaltungs GmbH, which is mostly attributed to the Laura Privatstiftung. This is the family foundation where a considerable fortune is said to still be held, and whose beneficiary is René Benko's mother. The magazine then describes a kind of money carousel around the mentioned advance payment for autumn 2023.

Therefore, the investigators suspected that money was being circulated and ended up back in the sphere of the Laura Foundation, which allegedly harmed Benko's creditors by this amount. The administrator has not yet had access to the family foundation's money. The house was not habitable at the time but in need of renovation. A renovation after a landslide and significant water damage would have taken until early 2024, according to internal email evaluations and statements from former managers of Signa and the owner company RB Immobilienverwaltungs GmbH & Co KG, as reported by the magazine.

The Benko family actually moved in around the turn of the year 2024/25. This raises the question of why Rene Benko paid four years' rent in advance for a house that the family initially could not move into. The WKStA considers the process neither legally plausible nor economically sensible and suspects that money did indeed flow into the influence of the foundations, writes "profil". René Benko sees it differently in his interrogation. He appears to be trying to "portray himself as a legal layman and retreat to a lack of legal understanding," the investigators write in the indictment. However, given his career as an internationally active real estate investor, this strategy seems rather implausible to the investigators.

Repayment to Mother Could Constitute Creditor Damage

It could also become tight for Benko with a 300,000 Euro transfer to his mother Ingeborg - titled as a loan repayment on November 29, 2023 - the day the parent company of Signa, Signa Holding, went bankrupt. Shortly before that, Rene Benko had received 1.5 million Euros from his mother. The investigators assume this was a gift from the mother to the son. And this is precisely what a gift agreement suggests, which was concluded two months later.

Why Benko is now repaying part of the alleged monetary gift to his mother, when such money flows to Benko were common according to "profil", is also questioned in the indictment. Because Benko repaid it when he already had a massive need for money due to the Signa crisis. At the end of 2023, he had promised to contribute his own money for the restructuring of the troubled Signa. "So why does he return 300,000 Euros without necessity, instead of keeping the money and using it to pay off other foreseeable claims?" investigators ask according to "profil".

Benko himself told the investigators that he simply did not need the entire 1.5 million Euros and returned part of it. However, the public prosecutor accuses him of having harmed his creditors by doing so. Because while the administrator can access Benko's assets in the insolvency proceedings, there is no family liability for assets in domestic insolvency law.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.