The 'Port Lawyers' and the Notary
Trial observers report from the criminal proceedings against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich - with closing remarks by [his former CIC-colleague] Viviane Fischer
The detention of CIC-Co-Founder Dr. Reiner Fuellmich continues as he stands on trial in Germany. Many reports are available from supporters of Reiner Fuellmich, for example here. The following is a translated report from 2020News.de, the website associated with the CIC and Viviane Fischer. The term “Port Lawyers” used in the Headline as a literal translation refers to the Law Firm “Hafenanwälte” which is run by 3 Lawyers who have in various ways been associated with Dr. Reiner Fuellmich. They have reported him to the prosecutors in early September 2020, after the scandal over allegedly missing, or misappropriated funds of the Corona Investigation committee became public. Due to the prominence of Dr. Fuellmich in the international community of opponents/critics of “Pandemic Policies” the article is provided in order to help readers better understand what may be going on. “Auditur et altera pars” used to be a term frequently applied by Reiner Fuellmich himself. [Squared brackets] indicate additions by Uwe Alschner
The 'Port Lawyers' and the Notary
Eight days of hearings have now taken place in the criminal proceedings against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich on charges of breach of trust before the 5th Chamber for Commercial Criminality of the Göttingen Regional Court. The case concerns a loan of € 700,000 from funds of the Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG i.Gr. foundation, which Dr. Reiner Fuellmich received at the end of 2020, or beginning of 2021, which he used privately and has not yet repaid. Whether he was allowed to do so and whether Dr. Reiner Fuellmich was deliberately or de facto prevented by a third party from repaying the loan amount is part of the court's effort to establish the facts.
According to Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, repayment is said to have been prevented by the fact that the intended sale price of his house was paid almost in its entirety - and allegedly without justification - to the land charge creditor, lawyer Marcel Templin [of the Port Lawyers]. He received €1,158,000 instead of the nominally secured €650,000. Dr. Reiner Fuellmich is of the opinion that Marcel Templin was not actually entitled to anything from the land charge, meaning that he collected the entire sum without due cause.
The lawyer Dr. Justus Hoffmann and the Göttingen notary Dr. Stefan Kleinjohann have so far been questioned on this issue in court. Here is the report of the notary's hearing:
The purchase agreements for Dr. Reiner Fuellmich's house in Göttingen, which housed his law firm and his apartment, were signed in October 2022, the notary informs the court. The signing parties were Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and the two buyers, Mr. R. and Mr. A. There was an initial contractual agreement with Mr. A. regarding his part of the property back in August 2022, but this was not executed immediately for unknown reasons. Mr. A. is apparently Dr. Reiner Fuellmich's neighbor, he had purchased the office space in the basement, which extends into the neighboring property. The other buyer, Mr. R., is a real estate agent. He has since moved his office into Dr. Reiner Fuellmich's [former] house. The office space in the basement was sold for € 295,000, the large plot with the bungalow for € 1,050,000, both plots together for a total of € 1,345,000.
The contract was signed at the notary's office on a public holiday (!), as Dr. Reiner Fuellmich surprisingly reports. It was October 3, 2022, the Day of German Unity. Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and the notary seem to know each other well. The notary was a friend of his from university and they had known each other (more closely?) for 20 years, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich informed the court.
The notary reported that a total of five land charges had been entered in the land register when he inspected the property, three for Bankhaus Hallbaum (now: Warburg Bank) and two for private individuals. The total volume of the registered charges: € 1,175,000. If the property had been sold for the agreed amount, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich would have been left with just € 170,000 (minus any incidental purchase costs).
However, according to the notary, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich assured him that all of these land charges were no longer valid because the underlying loans had been repaid. Dr. Reiner Fuellmich had promised him, the notary further reported, that he would provide cancellation approvals from the satisfied land charge creditors. In the contract, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich assures: “All deletion approvals have already been issued or will be issued shortly; I or my representatives will forward the documents to the notary”. With regard to the land charge of the two private individuals, the deletion authorization was issued shortly, as announced, via another notary. However, a deletion approval for the three first-ranking land charges was not issued, neither by the bank nor by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich personally, the court learned [emph. added].
On his next inspection [six weeks after the sale, on or around Nov. 18, 2022], the notary then found a land charge in favor of the lawyer Marcel Templin in the first three ranking positions (a total of € 650,000), which surprised him greatly, the notary continued. And this despite the fact that the contract stated: “Seller (= Dr. Reiner Füllmich, editor's note) assures that no further changes have been made and are not to be expected.”
Dr. Reiner Fuellmich then informed [the notary] that Marcel Templin was wrongly listed in the land register. He had accepted the assignment of the land charge too late. Moreover, Marcel Templin did not or no longer had any claim to be secured. An earlier claim to repayment of a loan from funds of the class action had been extinguished by the fact that the class action plaintiffs had all transferred to him, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich. As a result, their funds were also transferred to him [emph. added].
Editor's note: Attorney Marcel Templin is or was the contractual partner of the business owners who wanted to participate in Dr. Reiner Fuellmich's class action project. Those wishing to sue each transferred € 800 plus VAT, i.e. a total of € 952 per [entity], to Lawyer Marcel Templin so that a class action lawsuit could be initiated in the USA on account of the defective PCR test, which, as German business owners, they could join. The article "Und täglich gruesst die Sammelklage" on 2020News shows the status of the class action per September 15, 2022. Until then, no lawsuits had been initiated that would have met these criteria. Large sums have been collected from the entrepreneurs willing to sue, probably at least € 900,000. 2020News will report separately on the current status of the class action.
Further Details were disclosed in court: Dr. Reiner Fuellmich received a loan of € 500,000 from Marcel Templin at the end of 2020 from the class action funds to pay off a loan on his property in Göttingen. Dr. Reiner Fuellmich had instructed the bank to assign the land charges registered in its name for a total of € 650,000 to secure Marcel Templin's repayment claim. Whether Reiner Fuellmich received additional money from Marcel Templin over and above the € 500,000, so that the sum of € 650,000 secured by land charges was reached, remained unclear at the hearing [emph. added].
According to the notary, Marcel Templin then approached him with a request for copies of the purchase contracts. He had wanted to know how much money the house had been sold for. However, the notary apparently refused to provide him with this information. Dr. Justus Hoffmann then contacted the notary by telephone and asked him to explain “how the land charge thing worked”. The notary informed him that a land charge creditor should only assert claims which actually existed. Formally, there is still land register interest, which is very high at 15 or 18 percent, as well as ancillary service claims of 5 percent, which initially could theoretically be used to collect additional money. However, it is clear that only the money can be kept to which one has a lawful claim, other than just the formal title as a land charge creditor. The reason for which a land charge may be drawn is normally determined by a so-called “security purpose clause”. With this, the landowner determines precisely the claims for which, if default occurs, his property should be liable if necessary.
During his hearing in Göttingen on 1 March 2024, Dr. Justus Hoffmann stated that there was no such security purpose issued for the assigned land charge. Does this imply Dr. Reiner Fuellmich intended the property to be liable for further claims by Marcel Templin? If so, for which ones?
The notary also reported that Marcel Templin had subsequently [around Christmas 2022] come to his office, accompanied by a man and a woman, and had provided him a fiduciary mandate to clear the land register. The notary did not spontaneously recognize Antonia Fischer [as the woman], who was present in the courtroom. However, she confirmed that it was she who had attended the appointment with the notary together with Dr. Justus Hoffmann. Marcel Templin's instruction to the notary was that he could only have the land charge of € 650,000 deleted if he [Templin] received a total of € 1,158,000 from the buyers. The notary proceeded to inform the buyers accordingly. € 1,158,000 was transferred to Marcel Templin. The rest of the money was transferred to Inka Fuellmich, as Reiner Fuellmich had stipulated in the purchase contract [emph. added].
After deducting the costs, the sum that Dr. Reiner Fuellmich received from the sale of the house is likely to have been around € 140,000, of which nothing was paid back to the Corona Committee.
The notary stated that he was not obliged to check whether the claim of a land charge creditor actually still existed, as he could not check every bank loan statement for correctness. The presiding judge posed the question of how large the gap between the recognizable claim and the claimed redemption amount would have to be for the notary to affirm that he had a special duty to check. What would he do if, for example, a bank only had a claim of € 500, but demanded € 100,000 in order to grant the deletion settlement? The notary said that in such a case he would probably ask again and inform the seller. However, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and the notary agreed that the notary had never informed Dr. Reiner Fuellmich of the high sum mentioned in the Fiduciary Mandate agreement/Trust order [emph. added].
Although his old acquaintance Dr. Reiner Fuellmich stated in emails to the notary in no uncertain terms that he could see absolutely no claims on the part of Marcel Templin from the land charge, the notary asserts not to have pointed out to him [Fuellmich] that almost the entire purchase price was to be paid out to the land charge creditor. An email from Dr. Reiner Fuellmich to the notary was read out in which he wrote "it's worth a try". The notary testified that he understood this to mean that Dr. Reiner Fuellmich had given his consent to pay out the € 1,158,000. He expressed the opinion in court that Dr. Reiner Fuellmich should have protested unequivocally when he informed him that he now wanted to proceed in accordance with the trust order. Dr. Reiner Fuellmich had apparently not asked what the exact amount of the trust order was, but the notary had probably not communicated this order to him either [emph. added].
Dr. Reiner Fuellmich asked several times in court what exactly the notary had in mind, how he could have protested even more clearly so that the message would have reached him. The notary failed to provide an answer.
Dr. Reiner Fuellmich did sue Marcel Templin in expedited urgent proceedings to have the deletion approval handed over. His application appears to have failed in court. No further details were given as to the reasons for the failure. The notary was informed about the urgent legal protection proceedings and stated that he also had documents on this in his file, but he had probably not dealt with them and had probably not even read them. The judge asked the notary whether he would have taken into account a decision favorable to Dr. Reiner Fuellmich. The notary stated that he had probably read through such a decision and examined it. He refused to commit himself to whether or not he would have observed such a decision in any case [emph. added].
The shareholder of Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG i.Gr. Viviane Fischer was present at the witness hearing as an adhesion plaintiff in defense of civil law claims against herself. She has been sued by Dr. Justus Hoffmann and Marcel Templin for payment of the € 700,000 not yet repaid by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich plus € 70,000 interest and around € 8,400 lawyer's fees - currently still out of court. (Editor's note: 2020News reported on this in the article "The Corona Committee is under attack").
Viviane Fischer pointed out that Dr. Reiner Fuellmich had also failed with another lawsuit against Marcel Templin for the return of all funds from the class action. Viviane Fischer explained that she had received the first page of the court's decision. She reported that the action had been dismissed as inadmissible because Dr. Reiner Fuellmich had not submitted a correct application. He had demanded "all monies" from the class action. However, this was too vague for the court, as such a general claim could ultimately not be enforced because a bailiff would not know what exactly he was supposed to enforce. Dr. Reiner Fuellmich should have applied for a specific amount, e.g. € 200,000, to be paid to him from the funds of the class action. The submission of such a vague request was unusual for an experienced trial lawyer. It is of note that Dr. Reiner Fuellmich's mistake was apparently not corrected later [emph. added].
When he was questioned in court, Dr. Justus Hoffmann had stated that he had been virtually uninvolved in the issue of the release of the land charge and had only been given rudimentary information about the process by Marcel Templin on the trip to the notary shortly before Christmas 2022 to issue the trust order. In the email of December 13, 2022, in which Marcel Templin asked for the purchase agreement to be sent, Dr. Justus Hoffmann was in cc, which did not necessarily have to be of particular concern. However, as was shown, Dr. Justus Hoffmann had also spoken to the notary on the phone about the matter and had more details explained to him about the handling of the land charge. Dr. Justus Hoffmann therefore seemed to be more deeply involved in the matter than it initially appeared.
Editor's note: Dr. Justus Hoffmann has currently had 2020News prohibit the publication of chat messages with Viviane Fischer on the subject [archived here], in which Dr. Justus Hoffmann described Marcel Templin as "business-minded" with regard to the house deal. The publication of Marcel Templin's email to the notary dated 13 December 2022 [archived version here], in which Marcel Templin states that there are still claims by a company against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, is also currently prohibited by the court. 2020News will defend itself against the decisions.
During her own hearing on 12 March 2024, Viviane Fischer read out a chat message in which Dr. Justus Hoffmann explained: “The buyer is in cahoots with Reiner... He made Marcel a ridiculously high offer”. Viviane Fischer also reads her answer: “Beware, this could be criminally relevant. If I were Marcel, I would only take the loan amount plus the agreed interest.”
The following are Viviane Fischer's personal comments:
Did Marcel Templin, without the knowledge and will of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, take funds to which he was not entitled? Dr. Justus Hoffmann, who was apparently in close contact with his law firm partner Marcel Templin on the subject, was wa sin the know about the notary's advice to only demand what he was entitled to under the law of obligations. However, as a lawyer, Marcel Templin should have been aware of this anyway. If Marcel Templin was not entitled to the money under the law of obligations, why did he issue such an instruction to the notary virtually under the eyes of the public prosecutor's office and the public? Was he not afraid that this would be critically scrutinized? If Marcel Templin possibly did have a legitimate claim, why didn't he disclose it long ago? As mentioned above, Marcel Templin has sued 2020News to take his correspondence with the notary and Dr. Reiner Fuellmich offline. Why did he not immediately attack 2020News' reporting on the mysterious house deal from the beginning of December 2023 with appropriate evidence if the process may have been completely misrepresented?
Or, but this is pure speculation, could it be that there is a deeper level? Could money have been removed from the access of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich's creditors in coordination with other parties? In my opinion, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich himself cannot be excluded from the circle of possible parties involved [emph. added].
The Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG i.Gr. has a repayment claim against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich in the amount of € 700,000 and is still waiting for the money. Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG i.Gr. has joined the criminal proceedings against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich with an action for repayment (so-called adhesion proceedings). If it wins, it could enforce its judgement against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich. If Dr. Reiner Fuellmich does not have any money, the enforcement claim would initially come to nothing. In a next step, the Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG i.Gr. could seize a possible repayment claim of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich against Marcel Templin. It would then have to defend itself against any objections raised by Marcel Templin against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich's claim. It is clear that such a triangular lawsuit would take a lot of time, consume a lot of money and be fraught with uncertainty. If Marcel Templin were to become insolvent in the meantime, the Corona Committee would be “looking at the moon”.
So far, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich has made no attempt to repay anything to the Corona Committee. If someone, Marcel Templin or, in the worst case, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich himself in collaboration with Templin, wanted to prevent the Corona Committee from getting its funds back for a longer period of time, possibly even permanently, in order to be able to work with them, then the current situation of “shifting” the funds to Marcel Templin should ultimately be very convenient for this person.
The fact that the notary notarized on a public holiday reminds me of the unpublished Spiegel article from 1999 written by a friend of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and published by 2020News on 1 February 2021. It talks about so-called “midnight notaries” who notarized the purchase contracts of unsuspecting buyers of junk real estate in the service of the banks. The article states: “With notaries who take their "duty to inform and instruct" seriously, many a home purchase would probably not have been concluded. The notaries on the Hermes list were not so picky. They were even on call when the brokers dragged in their victims. The "midnight notaries", as Fuellmich calls them, often notarized late in the evening, even around midnight, and were available to help on Saturdays and Sundays. One Berlin notary took his official seal with him after work and made himself comfortable at home until the pusher appeared with his client.”
The situation in 1999, of course, concerns a completely different constellation and I have absolutely no indication that notary Dr. Kleinjohann could have been involved in the issue of junk real estate. What surprises me, however, is that a notary who could possibly have been involved in the fact that a client, with whom he is also a friend, now has to legally "chase after" a purchase price sum of € 1,158,000, speaks quite casually about the possibility that the client should issue a complaint to the Chamber of Notaries. Couldn't there also be a liability problem for him?
One more note: Marcel Templin is currently standing as a candidate in the European elections on a joint list with the doctor and journalist Paul Brandenburg, the child protection campaigner Carsten Stahl and the singer Jule Neigel. The group of candidates bemoans: “Anyone who wants to turn to the lawful judge because of the arbitrariness of the authorities - the actions of an executive branch that is increasingly detaching itself from democratic control - also has to wait months or years and has to endure the injustice experienced during this time.”
A mitigation of damages by, and thus possibly also a reduction in sentence for, or even a release from prison of the presently detained Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, is currently being prevented by the possibility of unlawful payments having been made to Marcel Templin. It should be easy for Marcel Templin to make an immediate and straightforward contribution to clarifying this problem and, perhaps, solving it. The question is: why he does not do this immediately? Does Marcel Templin really want to wait for weeks until his testimony in Göttingen in April 2024?
Only transparency can help against arbitrariness and backroom deals. This applies all the more to political candidates. The process surrounding the house deal is still anything but transparent. If this issue, which is easy to clarify and may possibly have massive consequences for Dr. Reiner Fuellmich - and the Corona Committee - is still being kept opaque by Marcel Templin even after months, I wonder what we can expect from a possible member of the EU parliament Marcel Templin?
