British investment banker Martin Shields told a court in Bonn, Germany, that he earned €12 million from trades using a dividend-stripping technique to avoid paying taxes, Reuters reported.
Shields is a key defendant in the German cum-ex tax fraud scandal and said during the trial that the number of trades going through the market between 2005 and 2012 were "astronomical" and "regularly exceeded 100% of the (company's) market capitalization."
In June, Germany filed criminal charges against Shields and fellow British banker Nicholas Diable over their alleged involvement in the tax fraud that resulted in losses of billions of euros for the German government.
Earlier, Shields identified Barclays PLC, Commerzbank AG, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB and TP Icap PLC as some of the companies that participated in the fraudulent scheme, serving as short sellers, share lenders, prime brokers and buyers on the illegal deals.
The case has also dragged in Germany's Deutsche Börse AG and Deutsche Börse AG, France's Société Générale SA and U.S.-based Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
