Tours · Düsseldorf · white_collar_trial
The V-Sign Trial - Ehemaliges Landgericht
In January 2004 this elegant 1923 courthouse hosted the most photographed corporate trial in modern German history, where a defendant's V sign to the cameras as proceedings opened became a national symbol in a case involving fifty-seven million euros in executive payments and six men charged with breach of trust.
About this place
When Vodafone completed the largest corporate takeover in history and the Mannesmann supervisory board approved appreciation bonuses and pension arrangements totalling approximately fifty-seven million euros, six men were charged with breach of trust in a case Germany watched with unusual intensity. The trial opened in this building on 21 January 2004, and when defendant Josef Ackermann, then the chief executive of Deutsche Bank, flashed a V sign toward the cameras while waiting for the judges to enter, the photograph reached every national newspaper within hours and became the defining image of the proceedings. An acquittal followed in July 2004, but the Federal Court of Justice reversed it in December 2005. The retrial ended on 29 November 2006, not with a verdict but with the case dismissed after the defendants paid a combined total of five point eight million euros to state funds and charities; chief executive Klaus Esser paid one point five million euros, Ackermann three point two million. No finding of guilt was ever entered and no one was convicted. The court vacated the building in 2010, the courtrooms became hotel suites and boutiques, and it reopened as the Andreas Quartier, while Hubert Netzer's allegorical stone figures of the virtues have watched over the portal without comment since 1923.
Key facts
- 57 million euros — The approximate total value of bonuses and pension arrangements approved for Mannesmann's leadership after Vodafone's hostile takeover, forming the basis of the breach of trust charges against six defendants.
- 2004 year — The year Josef Ackermann's V sign to the cameras during the trial's opening session on 21 January became the defining image of the case and a symbol in the public debate about executive accountability.
- 5.8 million euros — The total amount paid by the defendants to have the retrial dismissed in November 2006 under a procedure requiring no finding of guilt, with no one convicted.