Scholz denies intervening with bank in tax scam case

German leader Olaf Scholz has denied intervening on behalf of a private bank embroiled in a tax evasion scam when he was mayor of the northern city of Hamburg, allegations that have dogged him since before he took office as chancellor last year.

Testifying Friday before a parliamentary hearing of Hamburg’s state assembly, Scholz insisted that the meetings he held in 2016 and 2017 with a representative of the private bank M.M. Warburg were above board. At the time the bank had been ordered to repay millions of euros in tax refunds it had wrongly claimed for share trades. Soon after the meetings, Hamburg officials dropped demands for Warburg to repay 47 million euros.

Olaf Scholz