German businessmen: ECB’s bond purchase move challenged

Degenhart has already taken the ECB to court over previous unconventional policy measures

PHOTO: AFP

FRANKFURT:


Three German businessmen are seeking to block the European Central Bank’s controversial bond purchase programme, arguing it oversteps the bank’s mandate, their legal expert said on Monday.



Christoph Degenhart, a professor in constitutional law at Leipzig University, said that entrepreneurs Heinrich Weiss, Patrick Adenauer and Juergen Heraeus are seeking to challenge the ECB’s so-called quantitative easing or QE programme in the Germany’s highest court, the Constitutional Court.

Degenhart has already taken the ECB to court over previous unconventional policy measures such as the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme, which similarly has the central bank purchase bonds, but in this case to help eurozone members forced to pay high rates to borrow in the markets.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24th, 2015.

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