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The former head of one of Austria's biggest banks, Bank Fuer Arbeit und Wirtschaft (Bawag), has been jailed for nine-and-a-half years for fraud. Helmut Elsner, 73, Bawag's ex-general director, was one of nine people who were convicted in a case linked to the collapse of US brokerage Refco. Judge Claudia Bandion-Ortner found the defendants responsible for 1.4bn euros ($1.9 bn; £1.1bn) of losses at Bawag. All had denied charges of breach of trust, fraud, and false accounting. As well as his prison sentence Elsner was ordered to repay Bawag 6.8m euros in pension benefits. Bawag had been under investigation for lending ex-Refco chief executive Phillip Bennett several hundred million dollars before the US brokerage filed for bankruptcy. Elsner was the key defendant in the case in Austria, and had fled to France in 2006 when... [read full story]
