Federal Criminal Court – A fallen icon of finance before justice

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The main accused is Florian Homm, a German financier who is now 61 years old and named in the indictment as an “investment icon”. He is warned of fraud by profession, unfair management, breach of trust, aggravated money laundering and false titles.

His three co-defendants respond in particular to aggravated money laundering, false in the titles, as well as fraudulent bankruptcy for one of them.

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The Attorney General of the Confederation (MPC) accuses them of having helped to conceal the funds of criminal origin stolen by Florian Homm.

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The four men are presumed innocent.

Shadow of the Wolf of Wall Street

According to the 275-page indictment, Florian Homm implemented a scheme to artificially and deceptively increase the prices of American “penny stocks””, or very low-value securities traded on an over-the-counter market. unregulated over-the-counter.

Acting in the manner described in the film “

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The Wolf of Wall Street”, the financier founded in 2001 an investment fund management company, taken over in 2004 by Absolute Capital Management Holdings (ACMH). Penny stocks were cross-sold between the Absolute funds managed by ACMH, in order to increase their prices and transaction volumes as well as the value of the funds.

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The MPC accuses Florian Homm of having benefited in two ways from this system as the majority shareholder and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of ACMH. In fact, the inventory value determined the calculation of management and performance fees paid by the funds to ACMH. These costs were redistributed in the form of bonuses and dividends to employees and shareholders.

Complicity and trust

According to the prosecution, the German financier was also a 50% shareholder in an American company acting as an intermediary for the purchases of penny stocks. As such, he would have also benefited from the commissions collected by this broker.

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The Public Prosecutor’s Office considers that this arrangement was made possible by the complicity enjoyed by Florian Homm within ACMH and also by the confidence that the board of directors placed in him because of his exceptional performance.

It was when other Absolute fund brokers began to have doubts and launched a margin call in July 2007 that it emerged that the funds were holding penny stocks for a total of € 389 million, or approximately 26% of their value – well above the ceiling promised to investors. Florian Homm resigned in September 2007.

Houses in Spain

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The damage is estimated at 43.8 million euros, 215.9 million dollars and 734,184 yen for Absolute funds and 45.5 million euros for ACMH. For its part, the IOC would have been enriched in Switzerland by 170.9 million dollars, mainly due to the artificial valuation of its ACMH shares. This sum enabled it in particular to acquire in March and May 2007 two properties in Estepona and Palma de Mallorca (E) with a total value of 9.7 million euros.

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The other accused, all three of Swiss nationality, are appearing for having contributed to the laundering of Florian Homm’s criminal funds. In particular by providing offshore financial structures in the Cayman Islands. For this purpose, Florian Homm would have used an assumed name attested by a false Irish passport.

Director of a fiduciary of Küsnacht (ZH), one of them would have been the asset manager of Florian Homm. It would have made it possible to hinder the identification, discovery and confiscation of his client’s assets.

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The acts of money laundering with which he is accused relate to 201.7 million francs.

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The indictment specifies that proceedings are still pending in the United States against Florian Homm although he cannot be extradited from Germany where he resides.

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The American justice also considers his ex-wife as “accomplice not charged” of preparatory acts of money laundering.

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The financier, who had disappeared for five years, was arrested in March 2013 in Italy at the request of Washington and then released in June 2014.

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The debates are to last three weeks. (cause SK.2019.12)

ATS

Posted today at 05h35