By Mark Baber
October 23 – Wednesday was a great day on the pitch for Bayer Leverkusen as they topped UEFA Champions League Group C after defeating FC Zenit 2-0 in the BayArena. Off the pitch, however, things were not so good as a court ordered the club to repay €16 million of sponsorship money received from electricity company Teldafax which went bust in 2011.
The court, sitting in the hometown of local rivals I FC Köln, accepted the arguments of the company’s insolvency administrator Biner Bähr who argued that the club should have known Teldafax, at the time Germany’s biggest independent discount electricity and gas supplier, was insolvent when the money was paid over.
Teldafax was effectively running a kind of Ponzi scheme in which consumers were promised cheap electricity at a price which did not cover the company’s expenses, in return for paying up front. When the scheme collapsed more than 700,000 people were left out of pocket.
The court considered that, as Teldafax already had sponsorship arrears of €3.5 million by October 2009 and had asked to defer payments several times, it should have been obvious to Bayer Leverkusen the company was insolvent.
Under German law payments made by insolvent companies can, under certain circumstances, be reclaimed by creditors.
Leverkusen’s chief executive, Michael Schade blasted the court’s decision saying: “We are disappointed and surprised that the facts and many of our arguments were not taken into consideration. We will now wait for the full judgement and then consider if we will lodge an appeal.”
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