Yes, you hear that right: also doctors could commit a crime!
This is the case of a practitioner that got his medical license withdrawn for unworthiness due to criminal offences. Let’s have a closer look at the decision 19.05.2020 (Administrative Court of Munich 21 E.G. 16,540).
The Case
The case in question concerned a doctor who had been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, suspended on probation, for unauthorized conduct of banking transactions. The doctor had told acquaintances, including patients in his practice, about the possibility of investing money with allegedly high returns in Switzerland and had offered them the opportunity to participate. He was able to collect a total of 1.5 million euros from his acquaintances. He himself contributed 2 million euros to the investment. He transported the money in cash to the Swiss company whose false investment promises he himself had forfeited. He himself had been promised interest rates between 15 and 20 percent. He promised his friends interest rates of 10 to 12 percent.
The doctor however falls for fraudulent investment system and persuades patients to participate to a dangerous game.
The investment system was based on fraud from the outset, but the doctor himself was unaware of this. The money he brought to Switzerland was not invested, but was used for his own purposes by the representatives of the Swiss financial company who had defrauded the doctor. After the fraud had been uncovered, the doctor was called upon by his acquaintances who had participated in the investment of money, which led to his private insolvency.
The Decision:
The doctor was not authorised to provide commercial financial services, and since he did offered services on a professional basis without the written authorisation of the competent supervisory authority required under Paragraph 32(1) of the German Banking Law (KWG), he was convicted under Paragraph 54(1)(2) of that law of intentionally engaging in unauthorised banking transactions. His licence to practise as a doctor was subsequently revoked on the grounds of unworthiness to practise the medical profession.
He appealed against this first decision by bringing a legal action before the Administrative Court. The dismissal of the action by the Verwaltungsgericht München (Administrative Court, Munich), which declared the revocation of his licence to practise medicine to be lawful, was upheld in München on appeal and the doctor’s appeal was dismissed.
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