Ex-billionaire Benko convicted at Austrian retrial, sentence increased

An Austrian court found former property ‌tycoon Rene Benko guilty on an additional insolvency fraud charge at a retrial on Tuesday, increasing his prison sentence to 30 months from the original two years.

The case was the first to emerge from a wider criminal investigation into ‌the collapse of the property group Benko founded. Signa's failure in 2023 became Austria's biggest post-war bankruptcy and left ‌investors across Europe nursing losses. A court in Innsbruck, Benko's home city, convicted him in October on one count of insolvency fraud over a €300,000 ($344,000) transfer to his mother in late 2023, when Signa was already in financial difficulty. The court found the transfer was intended to put ⁠the money ​beyond creditors' reach.

It acquitted ⁠him on a second count relating to an advance rent payment of about €360,000 for a house in Innsbruck that prosecutors said made no economic ⁠sense. After appeals from both sides, Austria's Supreme Court upheld the conviction and ordered a retrial on the second count. Benko pleaded ​not guilty, arguing that he thought his company could avoid bankruptcy when the payments were made.

"Regarding this ⁠part of the case that had to be retried, a panel comprising magistrates and a judge at the Innsbruck State Court found the defendant ⁠guilty ​and sentenced him to 30 months in prison," the court said in a statement, adding that the maximum possible sentence was 10 years. Benko was convicted over the rent payment but acquitted over additional operating expenses for ⁠the house that had also been paid in advance, the court said.

His time in custody since his arrest on ⁠January 23 of last year ⁠would count towards his sentence and he remains in custody in Innsbruck, it added. Benko was convicted of insolvency fraud in a separate case in December and handed a 15-month ‌suspended prison sentence.

($1 = ‌0.8723 euros)