Austrian property and retail billionaire René Benko has been cleared of bribery charges.
Benko and nine other defendants were declared innocent by a jury on Monday evening in a high-profile proceeding that alleged a scheme to corrupt a Green politician, Christoph Chorherr, who was responsible for planning permissions in Vienna.
Prosecutors alleged the accused, who also included wealthy property developers Michael Tojner and Erwin Soravia, had donated more than €1.6m to a charity run by Chorherr in order for him to grant favourable dispensations for lucrative developments in Austria’s capital. Benko’s Signa Group was the single largest donor in the case.
Benko is the co-owner of Selfridges as well as New York’s Chrysler building. He said: “As we stated all along, the charges had no substance whatsoever, the accusations groundless and completely false from the very start.”
