A top European Central Bank official, Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, took the witness stand here Monday at the trial of nine BAWAG bank executives, one of the biggest legal cases in recent Austrian history.
ECB executive board member Tumpel-Gugerell testified to the court that she had not been asked by the trial's main suspect, former BAWAG chief Helmut Elsner, in 2000 to influence an imminent audit of the bank by the Austrian National Bank (OeNB). Tumpel-Gugerell, 55, had been vice governor of the OeNB at the time when she was responsible for bank audits.
There had definitely not been any discussions between her and Elsner in late 2000, prior to the publication of the audit, which turned out to be highly critical of BAWAG management, Tumpel-Gugerell said.
One of Elsner's co-accused in the trial, former BAWAG board member Christian Buettner, had testified that Elsner had tried to contact OeNB directors with a view to influencing the audit. Elsner and eight other former BAWAG directors are charged with fraud and betrayal of confidence following speculative deals in the Caribbean and United States that led to losses of more than 1.4 billion euros (2.0 billion dollars) and almost pushed the bank into bankruptcy in 2006. Tumpel-Gugerell, a member of the ECB's executive board since 2003, said she had read and signed the audit, which was completed in 2001.
The audit did not make any mention of the various off-shore companies that BAWAG did business with because the bank had never provided such a list, she added. Tumpel-Gugerell said she had forwarded the report to the finance ministry, where the banking supervisory authorities are situated. It was the ministry that had failed to act on the report, which criticised BAWAG management.
"I didn't think that the report would simply disappear into a drawer. I assumed something would be done," Tumpel-Gugerell said. Former Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser is scheduled to take the witness stand on Tuesday. The trial is expected to last at least until January.