Kai-Uwe Steck, a star witness who spilled the beans to German prosecutors and TV viewers about the Cum-Ex scandal, turned silent at a trial into his own alleged role in a €428 million ($446 million) tax scheme.

The tax lawyer, who for years has testified in countless Cum-Ex cases where he also extensively described his own role, “for now” won’t comment at his trial, a spokeswoman for the Bonn court said on Friday. He’s free to change his mind about that in the future, she added.

The 53-year old lawyer once was a key figure in what became a Cum-Ex industry, involving some of the world’s top banks. Steck was a law partner of Hanno Berger, the attorney dubbed “Mastermind” of the strategy that exploited how dividend tax was once collected. Their firm was instrumental in selling the business model to rich private investors. For years, they made millions from their work. After German prosecutors started to investigate, Steck flipped sides and became the first person to cooperate with the authorities in the probe.

Steck, who lives in Switzerland, traveled numerous times to police headquarters in Düsseldorf to testify and later was key to recruiting traders to follow his example. Under the fake name “Benjamin Frey” and wearing disguising make-up and a wig, he also appeared in German TV documentaries about the scandal.

In an opening statement on Thursday, his defense lawyer Gerhard Strate asked the court to drop the case because of human rights violations. His client had confessed to the crimes as early as 2017 but was charged only seven years later, in violation of the right to a speedy trial. Instead, Cologne prosecutors “used” him as a witness, degrading him to a mere “object,” according to the attorney.  

A ‘pawn’

“He became a pawn in the tactical considerations of the prosecution and had to testify as a witness at each of the trials held in Bonn from the fall of 2019 until this year,” Strate said, according to a verbatim of the statement published on his website. “Now he is being thrown under the bus by the beneficiaries of his risktaking and courage.”

Strate said Cologne prosecutors promised to drop his case before trial because of his extensive collaboration but failed to put that deal into writing and now it can’t be found in their files. This bad example will stop others from cooperating, he warned.  

Steck, who for years hoped he could dodge trial, had fired his long-time defense team after he was indicted in April. He hired a new pair of attorneys, including Strate. 

Just a month earlier, Steck had testified in the case of the former head of M.M. Warburg & Co. At the time, he said Cologne prosecutors “at no time” promised him anything. His attorney Strate didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the March testimony.

Steck is also scheduled to testify next week in the Munich Cum-Ex trial of the two founders of Avana Invest GmbH. 

Steck’s case is: LG Bonn, 62 KLS 1/24.

United Parcel Service Inc. will pay $45 million to settle claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the courier misrepresented its financial results by improperly valuing its freight business.

The company failed to follow GAAP when it evaluated its less-than-truckload operations in 2019 and 2020, the SEC said Friday in a statement. “Had UPS properly valued Freight, its earnings and other reported items would have been materially lower,” the agency said.

UPS, which didn’t admit or deny the findings, agreed to avoid future violations, the SEC said. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

The SEC’s order alleges that UPS used an outside consultant to value the business without providing certain information such as the company’s own internal analysis of the freight business. UPS didn’t tell the consultant it had concluded that “a prospective buyer would expect Freight to generate significantly less profit after it was sold because it would no longer benefit from synergies and other cost savings it was getting as part of UPS,” according to the order.

UPS sold its freight business to TFI International in 2021 for $800 million. 

Shares of UPS rose 1.1% as of 9:40 a.m. in New York.

Intuit Inc., the maker of the TurboTax tax preparation software, dropped in extended trading after giving a sales and profit outlook for the current quarter that fell short of analysts’ estimates, disappointing investors looking for a boost from the company’s new AI products.

Revenue will be about $3.83 billion in the period ending Jan. 31, the company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts, on average, estimated $3.86 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings, excluding some items, will be about $2.58 a share in the fiscal first quarter, also missing estimates. 

Intuit, however, affirmed its fiscal year forecast issued in September for sales of about $18.25 billion and adjusted profit of about $19.26 a share.

Eilon Paz/Bloomberg

The financial software company is working on implementing artificial intelligence features through its applications including tax preparation program TurboTax. Earlier this week, Intuit launched an AI assistant tool for QuickBooks, which helps businesses manage taxes and other financial results.

The shares declined about 8% in extended trading after closing at $678.70 in New York. The stock has gained 8.6% this year. 

Intuit’s stock dropped earlier this week after the Washington Post reported that the leaders of President-elect Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have discussed creating a mobile app for Americans to file their taxes for free. Intuit reported in May that it lost 1 million customers who use the free version of TurboTax, although executives have said the company is working to cater the software to those with more complicated tax situations who would buy the product.

In the fiscal first quarter, sales rose 10% to $3.28 billion. Analysts, on average, projected $3.14 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Those gains were led by Credit Karma, which jumped 29% to $524 million, topping estimates. The unit aggregates loans and helps users track cash flow.