Reiner Fuellmich, VW, and Deutsche Bank

A recent Substack article by “Elsa” is titled “GOOD NEWS. MORE DENIGRATION OF REINER - LIKE THAT HE NEVER HAD CASES AGAINST VW AND DB. THE ANSWER IS HERE.”

Although Elsa does not name me directly, the “denigration” in question obviously concerns my claim that

unless Fuellmich’s supporters can present hard evidence to corroborate his and their claims that he was a trial lawyer in major cases against VW, Deutsche Bank, and Kuehne + Nagel, with major victories having been won as a result of his actions, we are probably looking at a confidence trickster who won people’s trust by presenting himself in 2020 as something that he was not.

This is not “denigration.” It is an opportunity for Fuellmich’s supporters to prove me wrong by providing hard evidence (such as legal documents, case reference numbers, or other indisputable evidence) that he actually was a trial lawyer in the cases where he claimed to be one.

Six weeks on, I am yet to see such evidence.

“THE ANSWER IS HERE,” Elsa proclaims in all caps in her title.

Predictably enough, however, the evidence turns out not to be present. In fact, even getting to what is supposed to count as evidence involves first going on a convoluted tour of bizarre claims.

For example, Elsa begins (again in attention-grabbing all caps):

BUT FIRST: WHY IS THE CLAIM that REINER NEVER DID ANYTHING RE DB AND VW GOOD NEWS?

IF REINER WERE NOT GAINING EVER MORE POSITIVE ATTENTION, IF THERE WERE NOT EVER MORE PEOPLE CALLING FOR FREEDOM FOR REINER, THIS WOULD NOT BE HAPPENING.

This is a romanticised interpretation. My decision to write about Fuellmich was not at all prompted by people calling for his freedom. It was largely accidental, prompted by the fact that someone happened to send me a copy of the legal judgment against him.

Elsa continues:

Since I’ve known of Reiner, I’ve heard that he and his legal firm had taken on these two giants, and had won cases. I never checked. Why would anyone make up something like that? Also if it wasn’t true, I would have expected loads of outcry against his making false claims.

The naiveté here is striking. Elsa routinely writes articles defending Fuellmich, yet she openly admits that she never carried out the necessary due diligence on him. She cannot conceive of the possibility that he may be a confidence trickster. She relies on others to do the due diligence for her.

As I wrote in Part 4 of my series, however, almost no one bothered to do due diligence on Fuellmich, and that should be a key lesson for the independent media going forwards.

Instead of providing evidence of Fuellmich’s involvement as a trial lawyer in the VW and DB cases, Elsa points to “a really good researcher, Paul Charles Gregory.” So good is he, it quickly transpires, that “He had no evidence that Reiner had had cases against DB and VW, and was not ready to do this research.”

Indeed, when Ursula Edgington asked Gregory for “any evidence of Fullmich being involved in the legal cases against VW etc that were repeatedly claimed,” he replied:

Altho I consider this a marginal matter, I am aware of the absence of hard documentary evidence on this and other issues. It is possible that some references have been suppressed by search engines. It is also conceivable that RF exaggerated his claims. It may take a while to get to the bottom of this. But, as said, many of us do consider Reiner’s more distant past to be secondary. His achievements 2020 and 2021 especially are so outstanding and unique that digging this up seems in bad taste. Any missteps have been over-compensated for.

It is not a marginal matter at all. Fuellmich burst onto the scene in 2020 presenting his actions in the VW and DB cases as his bona fides. It was precisely because people saw him as a successful international trial lawyer capable of David vs. Goliath-style victories that they trusted him and invested in him.

If there is no evidence to support Fuellmich’s claims about his role in the VW and DB cases, then he engaged in deception, plain and simple. That deception was not “secondary” to his activities in 2020/21, or a “misstep” made good. Rather, it was deliberately used to help raise vast sums of money in public donations to the CIC as well as to his transnational class action lawsuit that never materialised.

In fact, if Fuellmich did engage in such a brazen deception — and so far no one has proven otherwise — then his entire career needs to be read in that light. Recall the words of Heinz Gerlach in 1999:

What attorney Fuellmich does as a so-called investor protection lawyer, in my opinion, verges on fraud. He pretends — verging on deception — [...] that he’s doing something for investors. He stages great events, he does Entertainment. This is American Style.

As I noted in Part 3 of my series, the same model of “staging great events,” entertainment-style, for the purpose of taking money off people who had been harmed, was evident in Fuellmich’s promised transnational class action lawsuit in 2020, his profile having been raised through the CIC. The Crimes Against Humanity Tour in 2022 was another spectacle aimed at making money off the back of serious harm done to ordinary people rather than carrying out any serious legal action. There is a pattern of behaviour here that frames his embezzlement of CIC funds.

Edgington pressed Gregory:

What are you talking about ‘suppressed by search engines’? That has nothing to do with searching the database of court judgments. Ffs. I’m sick of this ‘but all the good work he’s done’ bs, what were the outcomes?

She pressed another commentator, “Orli and the team”:

I ask again, with respect, please point me to the court case judgments against VW et al that Fullmich repeatedly claimed he was the protagonist of. Do they exist?

When met with ad hominem, Edgington pressed again:

Where is the evidence that Fullmich is who he claimed to be? It’s surely a simple response? One court judgment of the apparently ‘numerous wins’ that this de-registered Californian lawyer claimed he was responsible for.

At which point, “Orli and the team,” like Gregory, disappeared from the conversation, signing off

Please do not direct to me any more in this matter, is clear that we have nothing in common, do not waste your time, no I want to waste mine. Thank you

So, given that neither Gregory, nor “Orli,” nor anyone else at this point has any evidence to offer of Fuellmich’s role as a trial lawyer in the DB and VW cases, what is “THE ANSWER” promised by Elsa?

Enter “Luzdoh”

Rather than doing the work himself by searching a database of court judgments (as Edgington proposed), Gregory tipped “Elsa” off as to a comment posted on the UK Column members forum by “Luzdoh” (another pseudonym to hide behind). According to Gregory, that comment “provides the evidence you, prompted by critics, were looking for.”

Luzdoh cites the result I obtained from ChatGPT:

Major databases do not publish any court documents listing Reiner Fuellmich as counsel of record, lead attorney, or plaintiff in a lawsuit against VW — whether civil, criminal, or class action — in Germany, the U.S. or any other jurisdiction.

Reputable sources describing the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal (civil and criminal proceedings against the company and executives) do not mention him as a party or attorney in official cases. Those include filings from the U.S. Department of Justice and various courts.

He claims, however, that I did not ask the AI “properly.” My insistence on hard legal evidence must therefore have been improper, or perhaps “in bad taste” to use Gregory’s phrase. Quite why it is distasteful to ask for proof of Fuellmich’s credentials remains a mystery.

The “proper” prompt was for “details of how Reiner Fuellmich, lawyer, succeeded in exposing the Volkswagen emissions cheating scam in the case of the tampered catalytic converters (Largest fine in history.” This prompt, which invites confirmation bias by assuming Fuellmich’s success in the matter, allegedly returned the following result for Luzdoh from the AI bot on Brave:

Reiner Fuellmich played a key role in the legal actions against Volkswagen during the Dieselgate scandal, which erupted in 2015 when it was revealed that the automaker had installed software in diesel vehicles to cheat emissions tests. He represented affected vehicle owners, focusing on economic damages caused by diminished resale values and repair costs. His efforts were part of a broader wave of consumer lawsuits in Germany and the U.S., contributing to the pressure that led to Volkswagen agreeing to global settlements exceeding $28 billion—the largest fine in history for such a case. These settlements included compensation for vehicle buybacks, repairs, and environmental remediation. Fuellmich’s success in these cases established his reputation as a high-profile advocate for consumers against corporate misconduct.

Try doing Luzdoh’s search for yourself on Brave. When I enter the very same prompt, I get a rather different result:

Thus, the “evidence” to which Gregory refers in Luzdoh’s post is nothing of the kind. AI changes its mind from one moment to the next, depending on what sources it chooses to use.

Note that Luzdoh does not provide any of the sources to which their AI linked. Had they done so, it is almost certain that those sources would have been the kind of sources I list in Part 3 which uncritically rehearse Fuellmich’s own claims. Luzdoh fails to provide any hard evidence, such as legal documentation, to substantiate such claims.

It has been said that my use of AI to illustrate the lack of evidence in support of Fuellmich’s VW and DB claims is flawed, because AI is unreliable. Yet, it is impossible to prove a negative (i.e., absence of hard evidence that Fuellmich was a major trial lawyer in the VW and DB cases). My use of ChatGPT was heuristic, to illustrate a point. If AI cannot find any relevant court documents, then there is prima facie reason to believe there may not be any.

That is not to claim categorically that such documents do not exist. However, it is incumbent upon those who seek to defend Fuellmich to provide the evidence, not hide behind claims of “bad taste” and pretend that some anonymous figure on a private forum has provided it.

AI is not the point here. The point is the absence of reliable evidence.

Luzdoh claims that when they asked AI for “Details of case(s) where Reiner Fuellmich sued Deutch Bank” (as opposed to Deutsche Bank), they got the following result:

Reiner Fuellmich gained prominence in consumer protection law through high-profile litigation against Deutsche Bank, particularly in cases involving Schrottimmobilien (junk real estate) schemes. He represented over 3,000 clients who were misled by banks into purchasing high-risk, low-value properties in Eastern Europe, marketed as lucrative rental investments while concealing excessive fees and interest rates that made loans unpayable.

A landmark case in January 2018 involved a client whose mortgage was tied to one of these fraudulent schemes. The Higher Regional Court ruled in favor of Fuellmich’s client, explicitly identifying “attempted process fraud” by Deutsche Bank employees who allegedly fabricated evidence and misled the court. The court condemned the bank’s conduct as undermining judicial integrity and ordered disclosures that supported the plaintiff’s claims, resulting in a favorable judgment.

Fuellmich argued that Deutsche Bank engaged in systematic misrepresentation, and his efforts contributed to broader class-like actions against the bank. He later referred to Deutsche Bank as “one of the most toxic criminal organizations in the world”, citing its role in the 2009–2016 corruption scandal, which culminated in a $130 million settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over money laundering, bribery, and fraud.’

I get a partially similar result when I put the same prompt into Brave (excluding Elsa’s article as a source):

Giving Luzdoh the benefit of the doubt that their comment may have been published before my Part 3 (the date is not specified), it is possible that the final section on legal action (which sources back to my Part 3) did not appear for them.

What, then, were the sources for Brave AI’s claim that Fuellmich represented over 3,000 clients against Deutsche Bank, of which a single client won a victory in 2018? As far as I can tell, the only source for this information is Grokipedia, and when one looks at the four sources it relies on, the results are far from persuasive.

One of those four sources is a 2015 magazine article about a magazine article in which Fuellmich is said to have accused Deutsche Bank of lying about its role in systemically mis-selling junk properties. Allegedly, he represented “hundreds” (not thousands) of victims of that scam.

Perhaps his supporters could find some legal evidence to corroborate that claim? And what exactly does “represented” mean here? What exactly did Fuellmich’s clients get for their money? Such questions need to be asked in light of his empty promise to get justice for German entrepreneurs harmed by the Covid “measures.” By asking for €800 plus VAT per client to join his scheme, he managed to raise at least €1,440,000 (of which at least €500,000 went straight into his mortgage) before delivering precisely nothing.

The second article, from 2017, references a taz article that in turn cites an article Fuellmich co-authored with Michael Bohndorf in the Journal of Business and Consumer Law. This academic journal article alleges that loan agreements made by Deutsche Bank should be void in “at least 4,000 cases.” It accuses the bank of mass litigation fraud and of systematically lying to the courts about the timing of contracts.

Making allegations in a journal article, however, is a far cry from being a successful trial lawyer against Deutsche Bank, much as Fuellmich moderating a panel on DB and VW in 2018 was not the same as taking legal action.

The third article reveals that the successful lawyer in the 2018 court case was not Fuellmich, but rather Dietmar Kälberer from the law firm Kälberer & Tittel. As far as Fuellmich is concerned, it notes:

Attorney Fuellmich has filed criminal charges against Deutsche Bank officials for attempted litigation fraud in several cases. He specializes in real estate cases. There are cases where prosecutors investigate his complaints. In two specific cases (case numbers: 7730 Js 218825/16 and 7580 Js 215607/13), the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed ongoing investigations. This means that the prosecution sees at least initial suspicion. In other cases, however, the investigations were discontinued because the initial suspicion was not confirmed. Such complaints have not yet resulted in proceedings before a criminal court.

So, Fuellmich was not a prosecutor against Deutsche Bank. His 2020 claim to have been “practicing law primarily as a trial lawyer against fraudulent corporations such as Deutsche Bank” is therefore overblown. He was involved in “several” cases, not over 3,000. None of them had, at that time, led to criminal proceedings. Did they ever? Maybe Fuellmich’s supporters can providence the evidence.

The final article, on the VW scandal from 2019, does not mention Fuellmich.

Note that I am effectively doing the work that Fuellmich’s supporters should be doing themselves. I am digging for evidence to substantiate the big claims with which he introduced himself to the Covid-critical scene in 2020, and which his supporters have uncritically amplified. For some reason, that evidence is very hard to find.

At best, it seems that Fuellmich “filed charges” with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in some cases relating to DB. There appears to be no hard evidence that those charges actually led to anything, however — no direct correlation between Fuellmich’s actions and major legal victories being won against VW and DB.

I would be happy for Fuellmich’s supporters to prove me wrong by providing such evidence, but if a quick search on Brave AI is the best they can do after six weeks, then the situation is looking pretty hopeless for them.

Coda

Today happens to be Fuellmich’s 68th birthday. Apparently there will be a “Free Reiner Fuellmich” protest outside the German embassy in Washington, D.C.

According to Elsa, the US Ambassador to Germany will be taking part:

On Fuellmich’s Substack, a statement has appeared, supposedly by “the US Ambassador.”

The statement is signed by KJ Bohmgarden.

However, Bohmgarden is not the US ambassador to Germany. She is described as “a kind soul from Philadelphia” and is shown to be the event organiser:

In fact, there is no US ambassador to Germany currently. The incumbent, Alan Meltzer, is serving as Chargé d’Affaires (acting head of mission) rather than a Senate-confirmed ambassador.

Even if there were a US Ambassador to Germany, they would most likely be found at the US embassy in Berlin. It is the German Ambassador to the United States who would be found at the German embassy in Washington, D.C.

Therefore, is it true that the US Ambassador to Germany has written a supportive statement to Reiner Fuellmich and will be celebrating his birthday with his supporters?

It all looks rather embarrassing and like yet another attempted deception.

As always, though, there are ways to send money:

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