hypovereinsbank

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HypoVereinsbank said the raids at its offices in Munich this week were connected with share dealing between 2006 and 2008. The German bank said it had also reported some of its proprietary trading to tax authorities.
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HVB said the share trades in question had taken place close to the time of dividend payments and that tax authorities had objected to capital gains tax credits stemming from the transactions. The bank said it had already started its own investigation of the share dealing last year and was co-operating with authorities.
Buying shares just before a dividend is paid and selling them after the payment is sometimes called “dividend stripping” and can be used to generate tax advantages.
HVB said it had “already informed the Munich tax authorities that HVB had also possibly carried out certain proprietary trading activities at a time close to the date of the dividend payout and had possibly enforced capital gains tax credit in this regard”.
The bank acknowledged that it had brought in external consultants last year “to ensure complete transparency with respect to any dividend transactions carried out”.
UniCredit bought HVB in 2005 in a cross-border merger that created the largest banking network in central and eastern Europe in terms of customers and branches.