Following the fraud scandal, the Hamburg-based copper processor Aurubis is focusing on a fresh start at the top of the Group.

Chief Executive Officer Roland Harings, Chief Financial Officer Rainer Verhoeven and Chief Production Officer Heiko Arnold have to leave early. The Supervisory Board announced on Tuesday that it had "agreed to terminate the current Management Board contracts prematurely". "The three Executive Board members are thus taking account of the particular challenges facing Aurubis, particularly in view of the serious cases of fraud and theft at the Hamburg plant and incidents in the area of occupational safety," the statement explained. Only the board member responsible for the metal recycling business, Inge Hofkens, will be allowed to remain and is even to take on additional tasks. The strategy will not change.

Fraudsters had been fleecing Europe's largest copper group for years. Aurubis is missing valuable recycling material worth 185 million euros. According to the company, the perpetrators worked with manipulated samples.

However, the board members do not have to fear claims for damages from the company. According to an expert opinion by the law firm Hengeler Mueller, which was to examine the responsibility of the three managers, the Supervisory Board decided "as things stand at present, to refrain from asserting claims for compensation". Aurubis had already reduced their bonuses for the past year, as can be seen from the remuneration report. In addition to the fraud, this also has to do with a serious accident at work in which three people lost their lives in May 2023. CEO Harings will have to make do with total remuneration of 1.1 million euros for the 2022/23 financial year, just over half as much as a year earlier.

Harings, who has been in office for a good four years, is due to leave at the end of September; his contract runs until mid-2027. Aurubis will part ways with CFO Verhoeven in the middle of the year, while Arnold is due to leave at the end of February. He will be replaced by Markus Kramer for an initial period of six months. The former BASF manager will be appointed to the Executive Board from the Supervisory Board and will also be responsible for human resources.

(Report by Alexander Hübner. Edited by Olaf Brenner. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)