Supreme Court confirms Benko’s guilty verdict

Benko is said to have given his mother 300,000 euros in autumn 2023 and thus withheld it from his creditors. And that e.gat a time when his personal insolvency was already foreseeable. Benko’s defense attorney Norbert Wess challenged this guilty verdict and the extent of the sentence – and failed. The OGH has on Thursday Guilty verdict from the first verdict confirmed. This is the first time that Benko has been legally found guilty.

The Supreme Court saw it as proven that Benko gave the money to his mother and thus withheld it from his creditors. The highest judges argued that the money was simply gone and was no longer in the account. Benko’s defense, on the other hand, saw no harm in the “remittance”; in the end, Benko later received money from his mother again and more than without the remittance, according to the argument.

Rent advance payment

The Economic and Corruption Public Prosecutor’s Office (WKStA), in turn, today also took action against an acquittal on a second charge, which concerned an advance rent payment of 360,000 euros for a villa in the Hungerburg district of Innsbruck.

The Signa founder was acquitted by the court in October on this second point. Put simply, the argument at the time was that there was indeed something in return for the payment. The Supreme Court overturned the acquittal here today and the case must now be renegotiated in Innsbruck.

Benko, who is in custody in Innsbruck, did not come to the trial in Vienna on Thursday, but he did not have to according to the law.