The court said that Leverkusen should’ve known the company was bankrupt and therefore stopped accepting payments.
The money was originally given to Bayer between 2009 and 2011. Biner Bähr, the insolvency administrator for Teldafax, successfully claimed that the club knew Teldafax were bankrupt when they accepted the payments in the specified time period.
Leverkusen are very disappointed with the news, Chief Executive Michael Schade said: “We will now wait for the full judgement and then consider if we will lodge an appeal." The court revealed that Teldafax already owed Leverkusen €3.5 million in sponsorship money in October 2009 and had repeatedly asked to delay payments due to their financial situation and that it should’ve been obvious to the club’s management that Teldafax were insolvent.
Due to the laws in Germany Teldafax can actually claim back payments made before the company went bankrupt and this possibly added a significant amount to the final cost for Leverkusen.
When Teldafax finally collapsed in 2011 it lost over 700,000 people their money, making it the 2nd largest bankruptcy in German history. It apparently used prepayments by new customers to buy electricity on the open market then it sold cheaply to fulfil contracts.
