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Financial Crisis and German Criminal Law: Managers' Responsibility for Highly-Speculative Trading in Obscure Asset-Backed Securities Based on American Subprime Mortgages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Volker Krey ,
Jan Stenger ,
Oliver Windgätter  and
Thomas Roggenfelder

Extract

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“Should bankers be publicly hanged for what they have done?” During a visit to Abu Dhabi in March 2009, the author came upon this sarcastic question while reading the well-known United Arab Emirates' journal “The National.” The aforesaid question was part of an interview with Paul Koster, chief executive of the Dubai Financial Services Authority, concerning the financial crisis. He answered in the negative by saying, “There will be court cases, but public hanging is a bit extreme.” His statement has, in a way, anticipated the result of the paper at hand: There should be criminal proceedings in Germany as well; however, they should not result in draconian criminal consequences.

Type
Articles
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , 01 March 2010 , pp. 319 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 See Rupert Wright and Sara Hamdan, Time is Right for Regulator, The National, March 26, 2009, at page 3.Google Scholar

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3 See infra Part C, II 1, III Firstly, Fourthly as to this decisive aspect (lack of sufficient information).Google Scholar

4 Ulrich Clauss, Courage to Error: Christian Wulff, Die Welt, March 3, 2009.Google Scholar

5 Bank Managers Have to Reckon With Large Criminal Liability, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 27, 2009, at page 21.Google Scholar

6 See infra Part B, I.Google Scholar

7 Bank Managers, supra note 5.Google Scholar

8 See Volker Krey, German Criminal Law General Part, Textbook in German and English [Volume I: Basics], margin nos. 118, 129, 134–138, 139, 140, 142–144, 146 (2002) (concerning such purposes of punishment).Google Scholar

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19 Emphases added by the author.Google Scholar

20 Volker Krey & Uwe Hellmann, Vermögensdelikte, in Strafrecht Besonderer Teil [Band 2], margin nos. 541, 545 (15th ed. 2008).Google Scholar

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38 But see id. at 487 and 494 (dissenting Lüderssen). In his opinion both, the legal and economic aspects were absolutely not clarified and therefore the criminal courts had to contain themselves. However, this standpoint is not convincing as demonstrated above; in addition, it has to be emphasized that in Germany every transaction by banks has to be documented in records.Google Scholar

39 See Strafgesetzbuch (StGB - German Criminal Code) § 56 b subs. 2 no 2. In connection with the obligation (Auflage) to pay a certain sum of money to the treasury.Google Scholar

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41 See Embezzlement Suspicion: Police Comb through CBBW, Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 7, 2009, available at http://www.sueddeutsche.de/finanzen/501/496813/text/.Google Scholar