as an ex-British banker, who had been charged with fraud in relation to the schemes, agreed to testify and explain the inner working and participants in these transactions in the Bonn District Court. On his first day of testimony the banker only referred to as Martin S. went into detail on how the transactions worked to defraud the German Treasury by making it appear that one set of stock securities had more than one owner. These multiple owners would all then file for tax refund reimbursements related to the dividends received from the underlying stock. Martin then went on to name the biggest players in the scandal of who he was aware. He named Hypo-Vereinsbank, Commerzbank, HSH Nordbank, WestLB and Deutsche Bank as those players. The trial of Martin S. " is the first in a wider investigation aimed at recovering billions from banks who profited from a scheme, described by finance minister Olaf Scholz, as a ‘scandal’ which Germany estimates cost it more than 5 billion euros." On 14 October 2019, Handlesblatt Online reported for the first time that Hamburg Commercial Bank's current CEO, Stephan Ermisch,may have personal exposure for restitution that may need to be paid back to the German Government in relation to cum-ex trading. His exposure owes to the fact that Ermisch had oversight of the departments at Hypo-Vereinsbank (his previous employer) which engaged in cum-ex trading and the bank is now seeking compensation from three ex-committee members in an amount of 110mm euros. There is a chance that these ex-committee members, in turn, will make a claim against Ermisch. The article also claims that at the time HSH's own misdeeds in relation to cum-ex trading came to light, the Hanseatic state government showed no zeal to actually investigate the bank at that time. However, currently the Cum-ex scandal is being actively pursued by prosecutors in the city of Cologne who are showing much more zeal in pursuing banks that engaged in the illegal stock maneuvers. It was further reported by many German newspapers that the Cologne Prosecutors Office now has over 400 individuals in its investigative sights, including two former HSH Nordbank managers. The investigation also has many financial institutions as targets, including HCOB. Spokespeople for HCOB say that they consider the matter resolved via their previous payments of 127mm euro. However, it is unclear whether the Cologne Prosecutors Office will again be investigating HCOB