Rene Benko has been sentenced to two years in prison after an Innsbruck court found him guilty of defrauding €5 million from a private foundation linked to Austrian industrialist Hans Peter Haselsteiner. The judgment was reported on November 5 by DW, with the conviction also reported by BR24.
The court found that Benko defrauded Haselsteiner’s foundation of the money. The payment was made only weeks before Signa Holding, Benko’s real estate group, declared insolvency.
The ruling is the third criminal case against the 49-year-old businessman. He was sentenced in October 2025 in a case involving insolvency-related fraud, then received a 30-month sentence in September 2026 for harming creditors.
Signa’s collapse preceded the latest case
Signa Holding declared bankruptcy in 2023. At its peak, the group had a portfolio valued at more than $30 billion, including stakes in New York’s Chrysler Building and Berlin’s KaDeWe department store.
Benko’s lawyer said he would consider over the weekend whether to appeal the latest conviction. Benko had been released to house arrest about three weeks before the new sentence, according to DW.
Reid Bentley