Confusion in the Ruzicka trial

 
The main trial for ex-Aegis Media CEO Aleksander Ruzicka began in Wiesbaden. Aegis Media itself is increasingly coming under scrutiny.
 
The main hearing at Wiesbaden District Court began on January 15 with the reading of the indictment. It no longer comprised 167 pages, but only 60. Prosecutor Wolf Jördens read out the indictment for two hours. The core question of the trial is: Are the free spots granted by the TV stations to the media agencies' clients the property of the clients or the agency? The prosecutors assume that "Freespace is attributable to the agency Aegis Media". The indictment further states that Aegis Media "should have made 100 percent profit with these free spots". The defendants' actions deprived it of this. All the money went to the companies Camaco, Watson, Life 2 Solutions and Ortago and thus into the private sphere of the defendants. In each of the 86 cases charged, this was done "without any apparent legal reason". Moreover, the majority of the alleged crimes were committed after July 5, 2005, the date on which the public prosecutor and the only possible aggrieved party, Aegis Media, had detailed knowledge of Ruzicka's alleged criminal actions.
Defense demands stay of proceedingsRuzicka's defense attorney Marcus Traut filed a motion for a stay of proceedings after the indictment was read. The public prosecutor's office had withheld essential documents from the court and the defense prior to the opening of the main hearing. A defense of his client and an objective determination of the truth by the court were therefore not possible. For example, the witnesses Reinhard Zoffel (former CEO of ZHP) and Aegis Media CEO Andreas Bölte had only recently been questioned and the corresponding results were not on file.
Aegis CEO is considered a defendant by the prosecutionThis is particularly explosive as Ruzicka's successor, Aegis Media CEO Andreas Bölte, is listed by the prosecution as a defendant and no longer just as a witness. In order to be able to assess whether the cash flows actually took place "without apparent legal grounds", as the prosecution claims in each of the 86 cases, defense attorney Traut is demanding the provision of customer service contracts, agency agreements, media plans, contractual documents with the TV stations, share agreements, business plans and balance sheets of Aegis Media for the years 2002 to 2006.
On the day of the hearing, public prosecutor Wolf Jördens replied that the defense's motion should be dismissed as the requested documents were not relevant to the criminal proceedings against Aleksander Ruzicka. Conversely, the public prosecutor's office has not yet complied with a court order to submit the files against the accused Aegis Media CEO Andreas Bölte to the court. According to public prosecutor Jördens, Aegis Media had stated that the requested customer service contracts, agency agreements, media plans etc. did not even exist. Minutes later, however, Jördens presented the judge and the stunned audience with two contract dummies (quote) of corresponding contracts (between Carat and the advertising agency ZHP on the one hand and the company Camaco with the barter company Emerson FF on the other), which had been handed to him by Aegis Media during the ongoing hearing. However, these were never signed. Aegis Media CEO Andreas Bölte thus once again admits that Aegis Media was of course aware of Ruzicka's alleged sham and front company Camaco. He had denied this in September 2006.
Public prosecutor's office requests postponementPublic prosecutor Jördens asked for a further week to hand over existing files to the court. The court will decide on the application "promptly". The Wiesbaden public prosecutor's office, which has come under heavy pressure, is therefore trying to gain as much time as possible until the election of the Hessian state parliament on January 27 is over. Aegis Media is fighting tooth and nail against the situation in which it has put itself following the charges brought against its own CEO Ruzicka on July 5, 2005.
Since the Wiesbaden public prosecutor's office did not seize the material requested by the judge during the house searches on September 12, 2006, its existence is now being disputed. It is difficult to understand why Aegis Media served clients such as the advertising agency ZHP without concluding an agency agreement. In addition, Aegis Media is in the embarrassing situation of once again having a CEO at the helm who is accused of criminal acts as a defendant in a preliminary investigation - which has now become part of the "Ruzicka trial" following the judge's decision on January 10.
Ruzicka's companies in the service of Aegis Media for years? Research has now revealed that Ruzicka's companies Watson and Camaco were not only known to Aegis Media, but that their services were actively used for years. From senior Aegis managers such as CEO Andreas Bölte to members of Group management in London. Aegis Media remains silent. No comment.
Only the Swiss CEO of Aegis Media, Andy Lehmann, is speaking out. He is in the comfortable position of knowing that the contractual relationship between client, media agency and media is different in Switzerland than in Germany or Austria. This considerably reduces the scope for deals, kickbacks and free spots. Lehmann recently told the communications service persoenlich.com: "Freespace in any form clearly belongs to the client. How this is handled in daily practice is regulated in the contracts with our customers."
Major clients withdraw their budgetsWhile Andy Lehmann has recognized that the issue at Aegis Media really does need to be dealt with proactively in the interests of clients and employees, Andreas Bölte remains stubbornly silent. As a consequence, the first major clients are withdrawing their budgets from Carat Germany. For example, the 10 media millions of the client Pit Stop. A piquant fact: the service provider's commercials are mentioned by name in the indictment. R&V Versicherung, based in Wiesbaden of all places, also outsourced its budget from Carat Wiesbaden to OMD Hamburg. When asked, both companies denied any connection with the Aegis Media affair.
It is becoming increasingly clear that this is not about the "misconduct of individuals", as Andreas Bölte would have us believe in a press release in September 2006. Bölte has probably lied to the public several times. Aegis Media, and thus he himself as CEO, already had knowledge of the companies in question in 2005: Camaco is mentioned several times in the bizarre advertisement as the basis of the criminal proceedings. Carat had actively used the services of Watson for years. Personal inquiries at the Kreuzberger Ring in Wiesbaden, at Aegis Media's Central European headquarters, end with journalists being thrown out: no comment.
The presiding judge, Jürgen Bonk, who had eloquently and confidently removed the hectic pace and excitement from the main hearing in the run-up to the trial, adjourned the hearing.
Michael Ziesmann, Wiesbaden