The public prosecutor is standing at the reception …
About half of all major German large corporations and medium sized companies, almost all major banks and companies listed on the stock exchange in Germany have had experiences with public investigative authorities, and including instances where the investigative officials act contrary to their powers.
First Hand Report
It is 7.15 am on a wet and cold winter morning. 15 armed police officials are patrolling the main entrance of a Southern German automobile supplier and have swarmed all over the company facilities in all directions. Some uniformed officials have mingled with the employees in production and are doing some questioning; the others have focused on the administration building. As soon as he arrives in the accounting department, the lead investigating official pulls out his search warrant and confiscates computers and files before the responsible prosecutors have arrived at the site. Thereafter the team move to the managing director’s office. Several filing cabinets are opened and boxes of files are being shifted away in front of the photoflashes of watching journalists. “Where is our boss?” the secretary asks herself. What she doesn’t know is that a second task force is searching the boss’s private home.
Raids of companies and private homes of managers had previously only been known to the German public through the Italian press until only a few years ago. However since prosecutors have made such high profile entrances into Volkswagen, Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Bahn and Siemens, hardly any well-established company can consider itself safe from investigations concerning corruption, tax evasion, breach of trust or cartel abuse.
Source: Lawyer and Specialist Solicitor for criminal law Dr. Klaus Leipold, Lohberger & Leipold, Brienner Straße 56, 80333 Munich; quoted by Marcus Creutz, Handelsblatt – Legal Success from 26.03.2009, Page 8
