Danish Law Firm Ordered to Pay $59 Million Over Cum-Ex Advice

Denmark’s top court ruled that a Danish law firm must pay 400 million kroner ($58.6 million) to the country’s tax authority over its role in enabling the Cum-Ex tax dividend scandal.

A Bech-Bruun lawyer “irresponsibly disregarded the interests of the tax authorities” when he advised North Channel Bank in 2014 on dividend tax refund applications, which later turned out to be unjustified and based on fictitious transactions, according to the ruling published Monday.

The lawyer should have realized there was a risk the German bank was involved in preparing “a model for unjustified reimbursement of dividend tax,” the judges ...