2023 Thomas Mann Fellow Felix Rohrbeck kommt ins Gespräch mit Oliver Schrömm, Investigativjournalist, zum Thema CumEx-Files.

*Diese Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt*

The CumEx-Files is an investigation by a number of European news media outlets into a tax fraud scheme discovered by them in 2017. A network of banks, stock traders, and lawyers had obtained billions from European treasuries through suspected fraud and speculation. How could bankers, lawyers and investors steal 55 billion Euro of taxpayers money in Europe? And what was the role of American banks, including Morgan Stanley and the Bank of America? Oliver Schröm and Felix Rohrbeck were part of an international team of journalists that exposed the cum-ex scandal. The two journalists Oliver Schröm and 2023 Thomas Mann Fellow Felix Rohrbeck will provide insights into their award-winning investigation in the living room of the Thomas Mann House.

Felix Rohrbeck, currently a fellow at the Thomas Mann House, is a business journalist. He has received many awards for his investigative research, elaborate reporting and cross-media stories. Between 2014 and 2019, he edited the economics desk at DIE ZEIT, the largest weekly newspaper in Germany with over two million readers. In this capacity he was involved in exposing the cum-ex scandal, the biggest tax robbery in Europe. Since 2020, Felix Rohrbeck is co-founder and editor-in-chief of media-startup Flip. As a 2023 fellow at the Thomas Mann House, he explores what a heavier taxation for the exceptionally wealthy, which is currently being debated both in the USA and in Europe, could look like.

Oliver Schröm is one of Germany's acknowledged investigative journalists. He was the founder and head of the Investigative Reporting Team at the Stern magazine. Since 2019, he works for the public broadcasting company ARD/NDR and especially for Panorama, the oldest investigative news show on German television. Since November 2011 he is the chairman of the German association of investigative journalists, Netzwerk Recherche. During his career as an investigative reporter, Schröm has worked on several scoops and investigative stories. Together with Oliver Hollenstein, Schröm is the author of the critically acclaimed 2022 book Die Akte Scholz: Der Kanzler, das Geld und die Macht ("The Scholz File: The Chancellor, Money and Power").