"Not provable"

Public prosecutor discontinues Meinl proceedings

The proceedings against Julius Meinl V. (archive photo) have now been discontinued.(Bild: APA/ROLAND SCHLAGER)

After 15 years, it is now final: the Vienna public prosecutor's office has dropped the proceedings against Julius Meinl, Peter Weinzierl and others on suspicion of serious commercial fraud. Intent was "ultimately not provable", according to a statement. 

The accusation was that 100,000 investors at Meinl-European-Land had been defrauded of a total of 1.7 billion in real estate transactions. Julius Meinl V. was taken into custody in 2009 and released on a record bail of 100 million euros. 

"Intent cannot be proven"
The proceedings have now been discontinued, as the public prosecutor's office announced, because it was ultimately not possible to prove intent to damage investors' assets and unlawful enrichment: "Based on the results of extensive investigations, it was not possible to prove such intent with the probability required to bring charges, as it could not be refuted that the defendants themselves believed for a long time that MEL's business model was a good and promising one in the long term and would therefore also be financially advantageous for investors."

Infidelity proceedings also discontinued
The proceedings on suspicion of breach of trust to the detriment of MEL through the purchase of MEL certificates for EUR 1.8 billion in the period from February 2007 to August 2007 ("buyback") were also discontinued, as no criminal offence could be established here: "According to the available investigation results, the directors of MEL could assume that they were authorized to make such purchases due to the provisions of the legal situation applicable to them in Jersey."

There was no evidence that the defendants acted with the intention of knowingly abusing their authority and that they seriously believed that it was possible and accepted that they would damage MEL's assets as a result.

Following extensive investigations, all lines of inquiry in connection with Meinl European Land have now been concluded and no further proceedings are pending at the Vienna public prosecutor's office, it was reported in a press release. 

"With 15 years of proceedings, the judiciary has a problem"
High-ranking legal experts had already previously criticized the long duration of such cases. A former high court judge told the "Krone" newspaper: "A court must not only have heard the case within a reasonable period of time, but must also have made a decision. If the judiciary is not able to do this in 15 years, it has a problem."