COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -A British hedge fund trader on Thursday confessed in a Copenhagen court to helping defraud Danish tax authorities of around 8.4 billion Danish crowns ($1.22 billion) in a so-called “cum-ex” tax fraud scheme, broadcaster DR reported.
Anthony Mark Patterson confessed to having contributed to nearly 3,000 trades that the prosecutor alleges were fraudulent, and to attempted fraud worth around 500 million crowns, the broadcaster said.
Patterson is charged with participating in a scheme in which the Danish state lost more than 9 billion crowns between 2012 and 2015.
The “cum-ex” schemes, which flourished after the 2008 global financial crisis, involved banks and investors swiftly dealing shares around dividend payout days, blurring stock ownership and allowing multiple parties to claim tax rebates in several countries including Germany and Belgium.
Prosecutor Marie Tullin told the court that the fraud happened via tax refunds to U.S. pension plans that were not eligible to pay dividend tax in Denmark.
She said nearly all of the tax refunds ended up with Solo Capital Partners, a London-based hedge fund founded by the main suspect Sanjay Shah, and claimed that the defendants never actually owned the shares.
Patterson’s defence lawyer Henrik Stagetorn told the court that his client had received 100 million crowns for his role in the trading scheme, DR reported.
Stagetorn in mid-February said Patterson had planned to confess. Patterson had initially denied wrongdoing.
Shah, whose hearings are due to begin on March 11, was also present at the court on Thursday, Ritzau news agency reported.
Shah was extradited to Denmark from Dubai in early December and is still held in detention. He denies wrongdoing.
($1 = 6.8727 Danish crowns)
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Louise Breusch Rasmussen; Editing by Mark Potter and Sharon Singleton)
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