Guenther Klar, a former trader at Solo Capital Management who was convicted for his role in the massive Cum-Ex trading scandal, which defrauded Denmark of DKR12.7bn ($1.8bn), has had his prison sentence reduced by a Danish appeals court, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Klar, who had been sentenced to six years in prison, now faces a reduced term of three-and-a-half years, following the court decision, which came after a Belgian court imposed a four-year sentence on him for similar offences, which will be served after his reduced Danish sentence.
The 55-year-old trader was convicted last year for defrauding the Danish state of DKR320m between 2012 and 2015. He was found guilty of orchestrating fraudulent dividend tax refund claims based on fictitious stock trades conducted by his company.
The Cum-Ex scandal involved a network of bankers, lawyers, and other professionals exploiting loopholes in dividend payouts across several European nations to claim multiple tax refunds for the same transaction.
Klar, who had previously worked at Sanjay Shah’s Solo Capital hedge fund, was initially extradited from the UK to Belgium for trial, before being transferred to Denmark in 2023.
Sanjay Shah, who is considered the mastermind behind the scheme in Denmark, was sentenced to 12 years in prison by Danish judges in December — the longest sentence handed down so far in Europe’s ongoing investigation into the Cum-Ex scandal.