According to recent reports, the Ministry of Finance of the German State of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) has identified over 100 German and foreign banks as part of a tax evasion investigation into dividends stripping through so-called cum/cum or cum-ex trades, which often involves temporarily loaning shares to a German bank or fund in order to obtain a tax credit or refund on a dividend payment not otherwise available. The banks identified are included in a disk of illegally acquired informa…